UK floods: severe warnings issued along Thames, with more rain to come
Environment Agency warns of danger to life in Berkshire, Surrey and Somerset amid political row, as Met Office warns of more rain
Sixteen severe flood warnings have been issued for southern England, with another band of strong winds and heavy rains set to lash Britain on Monday night.
The Environment Agency has issued 14 warnings of danger to life along the Thames, focusing on Berkshire and Surrey, with the remaining two applying to areas already devastated by flooding in the Somerset Levels. A further 141 flood warnings, indicating less serious risk, are also in place.
The Thames flood barrier has been closed for the 28th time this winter – the most since it was constructed – and the severe warnings along the river stretch from Datchet to Shepperton Green, including Hamm Court and Chertsey. While the Environment Agency continues to pump water from flood-affected communities in Somerset, where rainfall overnight on Sunday saw levels rise still further, a spokesman said the agency’s “main focus” was now on the Thames.
The warnings came as the political row over responsibility for the failure to dredge deepened. On Monday morning, the agency’s chairman, Lord Smith, blamed Treasury spending rules for the agency’s failure to spend more on dredging last year, and said his staff knew 100 times more than any politician about flood defence. Smith, responding to criticism from communities secretary Eric Pickles, also pointed out that, by contrast, the environment secretary Owen Paterson had been hugely supportive.
The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, on a visit to flood-stricken Burrowbridge in Somerset on Monday, also entered the row. He offered partial support to Smith, telling Sky News: “I don’t think now is the time to point the finger of blame. Chris Smith and the Environment Agency have got a very difficult job to do. We can in the future look back and decide what went right and what went wrong. It is very clear for instance now that the calls here locally for the dredging of some of the local rivers, while it wouldn’t have been a magic wand solution, clearly should have been done.” David Cameron is also due to visit the south-west on Monday.
Flooding in Datchet, a village next to the river Thames near Windsor in Berkshire, forced National Rail to cancel trains on Monday morning and also prevented a replacement bus service being provided.
Services between Oxford and Radley have also been disrupted, while the rail link to the south-west remains completely cut off.
Network Rail is using shipping containers filled with rubble to provide a breakwater at Dawlish, where the mangled mainline to Cornwall was left dangling over the sea when the seawall was washed away last week.
Royal Marines from 40 Commando helped to prepare a further 20,000 sandbags for use in Somerset over the weekend. The Ministry of Defence has put 1,600 personnel on six hours’ notice to help in the south.
The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for rain from …read more
