UK leaders visit flooded regions as anger grows
Print Edition
Britain’s top political leaders headed to flood-hit areas of southwest England yesterday as they looked to limit the growing fallout from the government’s handling of the crisis.
Prime Minister David Cameron returned to the area for the second time in four days, visiting Dorset, while Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg arrived in badly-flooded Somerset.
Parts of Britain have seen their wettest January on record and around 5,000 homes have been flooded, with some remaining under water for more than a month.
Attention is also turning to more populated areas close to London, where water levels are still rising.
Anger among residents over the slow response to the crisis and the lack of resources put into preventing it in the first place have led to a pointing of fingers over whether Britain’s Environment Agency or government is to blame.
“I back the Environment Agency, I back the work they are doing,” Cameron told reporters from a windy beach in Dorset.
“I am only interested in one thing and that is making sure everything the government can do is being done and will go on being done to help people through this difficult time.”
Earlier Cameron’s spokesman said the government acknowledged part of the problem had been the failure to dredge rivers, a measure he said had been cut back since the Environment Agency was established in the late 1990s.
“That needs to change and will change,” he said.
Last week, the government pledged an extra 130 million pounds (US$213 million) to help with the repairs and maintenance of flood defenses, and the military have been drafted in to help build defenses and evacuate homes.
Cameron has described the scene in the Somerset Levels, an artificially drained wetlands area prone to flooding, as “biblical.”
On top of the devastation in the south west, the Environment Agency has issued severe flood warnings for areas of the River Thames west of London, and the Thames Barrier was closed yesterday to protect east London from flooding.
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