Find out how Government and the Environment Agency have responded to the flooding.
The summer 2007 floods brought to light how susceptible communities in England and Wales are to flooding, now and increasingly so in the future. Following this a number of reviews were undertaken to find out what happened and how the response can be improved for the future.
Our review
The Pitt Review - Lessons learned from the 2007 summer floods
On the 25 June 2008 Sir Michael Pitt published his final report into the summer 2007 flooding. The report examines both how to reduce the risk and impact of floods, and the emergency response to the floods in June and July 2007.
On the 17 of December 2008 the Government published its response to the Review:
How are we going to put in place the recommendations from the review?
We welcome the Government's response to Sir Michael Pitt's Review of the 2007 summer floods. We worked closely with both Sir Michael's team and with the Government, providing knowledge, expertise and advice where requested. We now look forward to carrying out the necessary changes and fully embedding the lessons learnt from the 2007 floods.
We now have the Strategic Overview role in England for all sources of flood risk including groundwater and surface water for which nobody has previously been clearly responsible. This role will enable us to lead and coordinate the planning and management of all sources of flood risk whilst retaining operational responsibility for main rivers and coastal flooding. We will take over this role gradually in line with adjusted resources and supporting legislation.
We carried out our own review immediately after the floods, and have taken a number of actions that were reinforced or prompted by Sir Michael Pitt's Interim report. We have:
- built 54 new flood defences, increasing protection to over 38,000 properties;
- established an Extreme Rainfall Alert pilot service with the Met Office;
- shared maps with Local Resilience Forums which identify areas susceptible to surface water flooding;
- provided information to energy and water utilities to enable initial assessments of the potential impact of flooding on their infrastructure;
- worked with water utilities and Water UK on the development of a national protocol for data sharing needed for improved better surface water risk assessments and planning;
- continued to raise public awareness of flood risk through our information campaign and the production of clear guidance on what to do before, during and after a flood;
- signed up a further 78, 600 properties to our free flood warning service;
- continued with our extensive science programme with Defra to make sure we have the right evidence to improve our capability to manage flood risk;
- spent around £131 million maintaining 22,800 km of main river in England and Wales;
- as a consequence of the above, we have successfully managed several floods since last summer.
Read how we plan to put in place the recommendations:
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee inquiry
The Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) held an inquiry into the recent flooding. They gathered evidence from members of the public who were affected by the floods and key organisations who were involved in the response. We submitted written evidence and gave oral evidence at the first EFRA hearing on 10 October 2007.
Other reviews
Other organisations are undertaking reviews of the summer floods. We are talking to these review teams so that we can share information and not duplicate effort.
Find out more
To find out more about the 2007 summer floods, the scale of the event and its inmpacts follow the links below.
