Local political leaders have called on ministers to provide more funding for disaster relief as communities are braced for the prospect of further flooding.
Sheffield City Region mayor Dan Jarvis has written to the prime minister calling for short-term financial assistance and action to ensure that South Yorkshire ‘does not experience such devastating flooding again’.
He pointed out that many areas affected had also been hit by the major 2007 floods ‘and the impact of climate change makes such events increasingly likely'.
Mr Jarvis called for a review of the scale and type of flood defences required for the river Don with a commitment from government for a major programme of capital investment.
He also proposed an emergency summit, chaired jointly by himself and central government, to produce an action plan to address short, medium and long-term needs.
Separately, the leaders of local authorities in the impacted areas are reported to have written to communities secretary Robert Jenrick calling for more funding, over and above retrospective cash through the Bellwin scheme announced earlier this week.
According to the Guardian, they wrote: ‘Five more years of cuts to council budgets will make dealing with major incidents like this increasingly difficult. Councils need massive increases in day-to-day funding rather than just one-off funding commitments.
‘It is vital that you commit to reversing these cuts as Labour has, and provide the funding we will need to help our communities recover in the long term.’
The impacts so far
On Friday morning (15 November) there were 115 flood warnings in place, mainly in the Midlands and Yorkshire, and 153 flood alerts, mainly in southern England, with many areas still suffering the effects of flooding from heavy rain that fell late last week.
The Environment Agency (EA) said that work to manage flood defences and pumping operations in South Yorkshire was helping to reduce flood waters and that overnight rain had not had a major impact on river levels.
However, EA area environment manager, Martin Christmas, said that overnight it had seen some criminal activity, with people trying to steal its pumps.
Rail services in the region were also disrupted and the Sheffield to Rotherham tram train was unable to operate.
On Thursday the EA said that it had so far set up 38 pumps across South Yorkshire, including at eight separate locations in the Fishlake village area, scene of some of the worst flooding. The pumps can move 50 million litres of water per hour to help protect homes and businesses.
It said the pumps had removed 1.25 million tonnes of water in the past 24 hours, which had helped to reduce water levels in the village from two metres to 0.3 metres.
The EA said it was installing more pumps at Fishlake and that around 200 of its operational staff have been out on sites in Yorkshire assisting with pumping, and deploying sandbags and temporary barriers ahead of likely further rainfall.
Army personnel were also deployed in the area on Wednesday.
Flood duty manager Kate Marks said: ‘Our thoughts are with those communities who have been hit by floods and suffered the devastating effects over the past few days.
‘The Environment Agency has teams working around the clock on the ground pumping away flood water, erecting temporary barriers and delivering sandbags to areas expecting further rainfall.’
Sheffield City Council said on Thursday that with further rain forecast, while there was currently no flood warning in place for Sheffield, it was fully prepared to respond if there was further heavy rainfall.
It added that over the past week, contractor Amey had been working extensively on recovery, dealing with ongoing issues across the road network and preparing for further wet weather.
Divers had also been clearing debris from waterways to ensure that rivers continue to flow.
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