Britain's worst storm in 13 years should act as a "wake-up call" to ensure the country's infrastructure is robust enough to withstand extreme weather, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, said yesterday. He spoke as robust tactics to counter the effects of global warming look likely to be written into emergency weather plans.
Local and central government leaders will meet later today to implement an "in-depth analysis" of current emergency weather plans.
They will consider what lessons can be learnt from multi-agency responses to the storms and the storm that hit southern England two weeks ago.
The Environment Agency and the emergency services will conduct similar reviews, and money will be made available for local councils to help with uninsurable clear-up costs, although the scheme is complicated and could take a long time to take effect.
In a statement to the House of Commons on the extreme weather battering of Britain recently, Mr Prescott said that, although it was impossible to attribute a particular storm to global warming, "there is growing evidence that the pattern of weather around the world is increasingly stormy and extreme".
It was vital, he said, for everyone to take practical action so that the country was prepared for a future where extreme weather was more frequent and to avoid the current situation whereby power lines, flooding and chaos on the transport system had brought the country to a standstill.
The government, alarmed at the rising number of flooded properties in recent months, said it would discourage "inappropriate" development in high-risk flood-plain areas.
But the Conservatives urged the government to re-examine plans for large housing and industrial developments in the south.
They insisted "concreting over the countryside" risked contributing to the danger of flooding.
Three more days of heavy rain are expected from today, and large areas of southern England and Wales, already suffering from the effects of river water rushing down high streets and through residential properties, will be particularly vulnerable over the next few days.
Businesses, schools and some banks, forced to close on Monday because local transport facilities were cancelled, began to get back to normal, but 33 severe flood warnings issued by the Environment Agency were still in force in southern England and south Wales and on rivers in Yorkshire and Lancashire. After a month's rainfall fell in just one day in southern England and Wales at the weekend and winds in excess of 90 m.p.h. battered the country, nearly 2.4 inches of rain fell on Yorkshire yesterday and many homes near the Aire river in North Yorkshire were flooded.
The city centres of Leeds and York were put on flood alert as local river levels rose and at the opposite end of the country heavy rainfall in the West Country swelled the Avon river, which threatened to burst through defences.
The Environment Agency's director of water management, Mr Geoff Mance, said the flooding was not over and difficult conditions would continue for another week.
"The rivers are still rising and we have heavy rain forecast for tomorrow evening [this evening] so we will see further flooding this week."