Pitt Review recommendations to combat flooding

Sir Michael Pitt's final report into the summer floods of 2007 followed 10 months of investigation and consultation involving homeowners, businesses, government officials, emergency services, insurers, utility providers, engineers and more.

The review called for "urgent and fundamental changes" in the way the country was adapting to the likelihood of "more frequent and intense periods of heavy rainfall."

Sir Michael said: "We have searched for practical solutions to highly complex problems and thought carefully about the public interest. Our recommendations are challenging and strong national leadership will be needed to make them a reality."

He added that research carried out as part of the review had shown that the risk of flooding "continued to escalate, making the events that shattered so many communities last year an ever-increasing threat."

Among his recommendations were that the Ministry of Defence should identify a number of trained armed forces personnel to be deployed to advise those working in the response to civil emergencies.

More work was needed to protect critical infrastructure such as power plants and railways against flooding, and the report called on the Government to put in place a "fully funded" capability for flood rescue, with fire and rescue services playing a central role.

Major threat

All relevant organisations should have a duty to share information with the Environment Agency and local authorities to help manage flood risk, the report recommended.

It also said authorities needed to be "more willing to tell the truth" about the risk of flooding, because a lack of clarity and transparency was putting lives and property in danger.

Sir Michael, who has already called for flood planning to be on a par with dealing with terrorism or a flu pandemic, said there should be a Cabinet Committee dedicated to tackling the risk of flooding, to bring it in line with other major threats. Other recommendations included:

• Building regulations should be revised for refurbishing or building new homes to make them more resilient to flooding.

• Local authorities should collate and map drainage systems - which contributed to much of the problems last summer, as a significant proportion of the floods were caused by surface water systems.

• The Environment Agency should work with telephone companies to roll-out an "opt-out" telephone flood warning scheme, in which at-risk people were automatically signed up, even those who were ex-directory.

The full report, which includes an 'executive summary' outlining all 92 recommendations, can be found on the Cabinet Office website here.