Flooding 'as big a threat as terrorism'

Flooding should be taken as seriously as the threat of terrorism or a flu pandemic, a major review has claimed.

Sir Michael Pitt called for a cabinet committee to focus on improving defences against flooding as he published his government-commissioned report into last year’s fatal floods.

“This is about bringing the importance of flood risk up alongside the importance of terrorism and flu pandemic,” Sir Michael said.

"We want a central government to deliver on these recommendations and therefore it needs leadership right from the top, at least at secretary of state level.”

More than £3bn-worth of damage was done, and 13 lives lost, when Yorkshire and Humberside, the Midlands and the West Country were hit by flooding last year after one of the wettest May and Junes on record.

Around 4,000 people are still living in temporary accommodation a year after they had to leave their homes, a figure that Sir Michael said was “unacceptably high”.

Although his research did not show whether the extreme weather was down to climate change, Sir Michael’s report did say there was evidence that the risk of flooding continued to grow.

This makes “the events that shattered so many communities last year an ever-increasing threat”, he said.

Calling for a two-year action plan on his recommendations, he said: “I urge the government to show leadership and urgently set out the process and timescale for improving resilience in the UK.”

His recommendations include a call for the Ministry of Defence to identify trained armed forces personnel to provide advice on civil emergencies.

The Met Office and Environment Agency (EA) should have a joint centre to improve their ability to forecast, model and warn against flood threats, the report advised.

Other recommendations called for the better protections of critical infrastructure such as water treatment and power plants, a duty on organisations to share flood risk information with the EA and a requirement on local authorities to collate and map drainage systems.

The loss of power supplies and confusion over who had responsibility for waterways were identified as particular problem areas during last year’s flooding.

Sir Michael said his recommendations were “straightforward, practical, reasonable and affordable”, claiming that four-fifths could be implemented within existing budgets.

“I'm not proposing anything here so outlandishly expensive that it should stand in the way of implementation,” he said.