Households sign up for flood alerts

A switch in the service from operating on an opt-in basis to an opt-out system allowed the Environment Agency to sign up 1.05 million properties, 57 per cent of those considered to be at a significant risk.

The number signed up has quadrupled since 2008, when just 14 per cent of those at risk were getting the free text, email, fax and phone service warning them of floods. One in six properties in England is at risk of flooding.

The Agency also said it had improved protection against flooding for an extra 182,000 homes in England, outstripping the Government’s target for boosting flood defences by 37,000 properties.

But it missed its target to create 740 acres of inter-tidal habitat, wild areas on the coast which can act as natural flood defences against the sea.