Thursday, June 25, 2009

UK government claims 'significant progress' on flood prevention

Luke Walsh in Edie.net: Two years on from devastating floods that tore through the UK the Government has confidentially announced it's making 'significant progress' on improving defences. The announcement comes six months after Sir Michael Pitt's review, published in December 2008, in which he made 92 recommendations to improve the UK's preparation, management and response to severe flooding.

Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, today (25 June) outlining the progress made in carrying out the recommendations in the Pitt Review into the 2007 floods.

Many of the recommendations in the report … are listed as complete or ongoing. However, one of the ones to have missed its target was for the government to develop a single set of guidance for local authorities and the public on the 'use and usefulness' of sandbags. This is now due to be issued by the Environment Agency (EA) at the end of next month (July), with additional guidance to follow in the autumn.

Another recommendation where there's been significant progress is with the EA and the Met Office working together, through a joint centre, to improve their technical capability to forecast, model and warn against all sources of flooding…

Bridge collapse in Ludlow during the 2007 flooding in UK. Picture taken June 30, 2007, by Mea, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0, Attribution ShareAlike 2.5, Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 and Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 License

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