'It's been a nightmare', flood-hit South Yorkshire residents tell Keir Starmer

The Labour leader spoke to residents and business in the Doncaster suburb of Bentley, one of the places where locals were forced from their homes by rising floodwaters last November.

Some are still not back in their homes a year after the catastrophic floods - which left several areas of South Yorkshire underwater - and others are unable to get insurance to protect themselves against future events.

One resident on a badly-affected street told Sir Keir - who was forced to barricade an elderly relative upstairs until he could be rescued when the floods hit - told him the experience had been an "absolute nightmare".

Sir Keir yesterday called for a flooding taskforce to include regional leaders and frontline services, to ensure communities across England are protected from the combined dangers of flooding and Covid this winter.

And it comes after the Environment Agency warned people this week to prepare for possible floods as Met Office forecasts showed the next two months may be wetter than usual.

Speaking on the doorstep, Lorna Ulyett on Frank Road, told Sir Keir she had to live in a caravan in her back garden through the pandemic until recently after the insurance company wouldn’t pay out costs that were needed to fix her home.

Nearby business owner Shane Miller said the insurance company tried to low ball her and he started to help them after they came to his worksop in tears. He’s since helped fix and redecorate the home.

“These insurance companies need to change the way they operate,” Ms Ulyett told the Labour leader.

“It’s the most expensive piece of paper on the planet and when you need them, they don’t do what they’re supposed to do.

“It’s dirty tricks with them, they said our house was dry when there was still water in the bricks and they get away with it because they know people don’t understand how they work.”

A pensioner on nearby Chadwick told Starmer he had to live in a Travel Lodge for two weeks before being moved to a one-bedroom flat in Scawthorpe and recalled flood water surging through his house and even up through his toilet.

Sir Keir, who was accompanied by local MPs Ed Miliband and Steph Peacock on his visit, told The Yorkshire Post that families were "really fearful for the future" and that some had been "living in their back gardens in caravans struggling against the odds".

He said: "And what we can't have is a reaction again, next time there is a flood, we've got to do preventative work. And that means putting in place, we say, a task force straight away.

"Because what people here are telling me is that they're apprehensive about the next few months, they're really worried about the bad weather.

"What they want is the reassurance that the preventative stuff is done. It's not good enough, just year after year, there's a flood, and then there's a response and then the next year there's a flood, and there's a response, we've got to get ahead of this.

"You do need a response but the preventative stuff is really important and what this government has done, year after year, is allow floods to happen, say there's going to be a response.

"And then there's another flood the next year, people want to know, are you taking steps to prevent the floods happening in the first place?

"Because we do not want to go through this again. People here who have struggled with their insurance companies, struggling to get re insured, and then at least one family who aren't insured at all because they weren't insured in the first place and they can't afford to be insured. This is serious stuff."

Last year's flooding in South Yorkshire sparked criticism of the handling of the crisis by Boris Johnson, who was then campaigning to be re-elected and but told locals the flooding was not serious enough to constitute a national emergency.

He returned to the area later and was berated by locals for his perceived slow response to the floods.

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said: “Flooding has a devastating impact on lives and livelihoods, but since 2015 the government has invested £496m in flood defences in Yorkshire – more than any other region – better protecting more than 66,000 properties.

“And earlier this year we doubled our national investment in flood and coastal defences to a record £5.2bn over six years which will protect hundreds of thousands more homes.”