Coastal sirens set to be silenced

Flood wardens are angry over the plan to scrap Norfolk's flood sirens

Flood sirens on the Norfolk coast look set to be scrapped after more than 50 years in service.

The county council has said the sirens are unreliable, need thousands spent on them and could cause panic.

But local communities are being given a chance to operate the sirens themselves if they pay for their upkeep.

The sirens have been used to alert residents to flooding or emergencies, but telephone calls and texts messages are now seen as more effective.

Legal duty

Three years of consultation have failed to prove to Norfolk County Council that spending thousands of pounds to refurbish the sirens would be worthwhile.

Funds should instead be spent on providing information about what to do in an emergency, a council report has said.

A report by John Ellis, the county's head of emergency planning, describes how the legal duty to warn people of flooding lies with the Environment Agency.

The responsibility for evacuating people lies, ultimately, with a group chaired by Norfolk Police, the report states.

Both agencies have said they cannot see any situation in which they would ever use the sirens.