Mayor exposes Environment Agency’s flooding failure – The Yorkshire Post says

For, even though George Eustice, the newly-appointed Environment Secretary, said, curtly, last week that a summit will now be instigated within “two months”, its importance and urgency is made clear by Doncaster mayor Ros Jones as her borough recovers from last November’s floods.

Even though she accepts the Environment Agency is under-funded, she cites a lack of co-ordination with local authorities, like hers, that actually exacerbated the risks to residents and businesses alike. “At the very start, the Environment Agency hadn’t got sufficient detail and knowledge of what was happening when we first had the flooding – we weren’t given enough advanced warning,” she said.

Damning words from a senior, and respected, political leader in an area where occurrences of extreme flooding are becoming the new norm, it is further reason why river catchment areas, like the Don, need to be considered in their entirety when it comes to planning defences.

Not only is there a strong suggestion that defences installed in Sheffield after the 2007 floods left downstream areas of the Don at greater risk, but it is the same in East Yorkshire where vulnerable communities like Snaith, and East Cowick, were virtually submerged by torrents of filthy floodwater.

And while receding floodwaters will bring some relief to the whole county after February’s record rainfall, this only provides Mr Johnson and the EA with a temporary respite, hence the need for them to address, directly, the many criticisms of Mayor Jones, and others, before the rains return.