Is Gordon Brown becoming Brownie II over the Flooding in England?

But it emerged last night that the government was warned in two separate reports that the plans in place to tackle flood risks were "complex, confusing and distressing for the public". In July 2004 the government said it needed to improve coordination between water companies, councils and the Environment Agency; then in 2005, the government also agreed to "work towards giving" the agency "an overarching strategic overview across all flooding and coastal erosion risks".

Ministers promised to transfer this responsibility by 2006.

An analysis by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has concluded that the current divisions of tasks lead to:

· A lack of information for those affected by flooding, with people passed between organisations and no one taking responsibility.

· Insufficient risk assessment because no single organisation has the incentive to carry it out.

· Development planning decisions being taken without a full understanding of the risks of urban flooding.

· Separate organisations making investment decisions based on priorities in their own area of responsibility without considering the wider drainage issues.

Maybe this really is a new period of government with no PR spin, because no one concerned with their image would announce building 20,000 houses on flood plains in the middle of the country's worst-ever floods.

And the housing minister, Yvette Cooper, tried to justify this by saying that York was a fine place to build houses because "The Romans built it on a flood plain". We can't take advice on this issue off the Romans - they built a city at the bottom of Mount Vesuvius and look what happened to that. When she was criticised, she claimed this was an attack on "affordable housing". By this logic she could announce 10,000 cheap houses are to be built in containers full of nuclear waste and, if anyone complained, she could say: "How dare you attack the concept of affordable housing?"

Maybe we'll at last see the benefits of the war in Iraq, and 10,000 affordable town houses for young families will be built on a brown-field site in Basra. Even then they'd probably be bought by bankers, who'd then let them out to jihadists as somewhere to keep people they'd kidnapped until the value had doubled.

Anyway, if the floods keep coming, they'll transform the housing market. Because the safest place to live will be the highest point possible. Estate agent adverts will boast "STAR OFFER ... VERY desirable property in highly sought after location *** This NINETEENTH floor flat in Moss Side tower block MUST BE SEEN ... ALL LIFTS BUSTED so no chance of soaking-wet people making their way to your level ... £3,000,000 ... no reduced offers considered." And five-bedroom houses in Maidenhead will be on a hard-to-let register and used for putting up refugees from Somalia.

http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/mark_steel/article2798497.ece