NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS- HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY. ........................................................................ PANORAMA "UNDERWATER BRITAIN" RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 19:11:00 ........................................................................ VIVIAN WHITE Britain is still clearing up, but is this weird weather we've been having the start of something bigger? HELEN YOUNG I think in 30 years time if I'm still here presenting the weather I will be looking at something quite different to what we're dealing with now. WHITE More storms, more floods, it looks like the first instalment of global warming. MARK DIXON It's going to happen, it's a fact of life. WHITE Already insurance companies are redrawing the map of Britain, bad news for some. DEREK BINNS My policy is cancelled and dead and gone. MERYLYN McKENZIE HEDGER What we've seen in the last fortnight should be the wakeup call. It's going to affect everyone's lives. WHITE This isn't war time, this is Britain at war with unfamiliar weather. It's 1am at Selby in Yorkshire. They're airlifting out thousands of sandbags to try to protect homes. It's a last low-tech defence against the rising water. A volunteer army of civilians are filling up sandbags ready for military helicopters to transport them to the front line. They just want to help in any way they can. IAN HETHERINGTON We came down, we seen the army doing their bit so we thought... the kids want to do their bit so I thought we could do our bit. WHITE Show us who your kids are. IAN That one's Rebecca. REBECCA Hi ya. IAN And there's Sarah. SHARON HETHERINGTON We used to turn on the telly and thinking 'poor them' but this time it's poor Selby. WHITE They're frankly awed by the sheer scale of the forces they're facing. JOHN HARDY It's desperate, it really is. I hope it's a freak but I just wonder whether it could be global warming. I really don't know. WHITE Whatever its cause the storm is attacking all over Yorkshire. There's another crisis just a few miles away at the village of Kellington. ARMY Good morning madam. I don't know if you're aware but at 11:57 tonight the Environment Agency issued a severe flood warning for Kellington. You're advised that you and your property are at risk and you should leave as soon as possible, OK? Now what we need to do... WHITE It's now 3am, a few villagers do pack up and leave but the buses that have been laid on for them are nearly empty. Most of the residents have stayed behind labouring to build sandbag defences to save their village by their own efforts. MAN We've been here tonight, all of us, just the villagers, building all these flood banks. They've not been here, no agency lads, no council lads, or nothing. WHITE There's a pretty good chance that that is going to come over. MAN We're staying, if it happens we'll cope with it. We've coped with it all day, we've coped with it for a week. We've been building it up and moving things about and trying to, you know, keep ourselves safe. What else can we do? WHITE Their threatened village is a mile away from the normal course of the flooded river Ayr. ANN BARRETT We've been through every emotion you can imagine this week. You know, losing tempers, shouting at people, crying, not really knowing what to do, going to work, not settling, coming home seeing this... But tonight we've gone out there and worked really, really hard and I'm convinced that we're saved. WHITE What about the wisdom of building quite so close to a floodplain? JOHN BARRETT Well yes, that's the thing. WHITE All over the country people are starting to treat the sheer force of the weather more seriously. [Television Weather Forecast] There is severe weather to contend with today across England and Wales... WHITE The approaching storm which began all this exactly three weeks ago even had the power to impress the weather professionals. HELEN YOUNG MET OFFICE I was actually on forecasting the weather the night before it all happened. I left work at 11 o'clock at night and I was worried because I knew this was something different, this wasn't your average storm, this was going to be severe. WHITE Across North Yorkshire the rivers have spilled out, lake Selby has been created, an area greater than Lake Windermere, previously the largest in England. An estimated third of a billion tons of water lie on a drowned landscape. The temperate British climate has behaved intemperately. A little to the north, in York, the river Ouse hasn't just burst its banks, it often does that, it's done its best to take the city over. Barriers and flood walls have held but undefended, right by the river, Cumberland Street has succumbed to a flood greater than anyone can remember. After the deluge people returned to their homes and businesses to try to board up their properties and to save possessions. Eric Cowie has come round to his mother's house. At five in the morning, Eric's mother, who is 89, had to get out of here. ERIC COWIE I'd put things on the bath thinking, oh they'd be OK there, and everything floated. The fridge floated over there... Yes, just a lot to do. WHITE In the Lowther pub just opposite Caroline Hickey, the manager who lives upstairs, wades around the ground floor bar. The assistant manager, John Marrison, discovers a record of the peak level the water's reached, 17 foot 8. JOHN MARRISON You can see from the water mark here on the cigarette machine, the bar behind me... it was all over the bar. It's just saddening to look at when you come in on the morning and all the hard work people have put in to try to save everything has basically been for nothing at the end of the day. WHITE But Caroline and John need to get the pub open soon, they're worried about the business they're losing. JOHN MARRISON I can't see us being open before next week now, at least seven days. WHITE Next week? We're standing in twelve inches of water and you're saying you can be open next week? JOHN MARRISON I would have thought we would be open by Monday, seriously. WHITE Over the next two days it rains even more and everything gets a good deal worse. HELEN YOUNG What was unusual this year was that instead of getting an area of low pressure... a stormy spell of weather followed by a little interlude of high pressure, drier and more settled conditions, on this occasion really the storms just came rattling in one after another. WHITE The Lowther was once merely a pub by the river. John, the assistant manager and now the boatman, is angry at the authorities for leaving them and 150 other businesses unprotected. There'd been a plan to reopen on Monday but the only way into the pub now is through the upstairs kitchen window. The bar has filled up nicely. JOHN MARRISON It's beyond a joke. I mean we're just left to our own devices and at the end of the day if the river does keep coming up like this we're going to be shutting more and more often, there's nothing we can do about it. WHITE Could this become a regular event? They get on with shifting the muddy glasses upstairs but they now longer trust the weather. CAROLINE HICKEY We don't know whether it's global warming or one of these cycles that come round. It would be nice if somebody in the know could actually tell us so that we would have an idea because if it is global warming then it's going to happen more and more regularly it would seem, and obviously everybody needs to get organised for it. WHITE Those in the know are asking the same question and for the same reason. Is this the first proof that the climate is changing? Scientists say that it may have been just chance but what happened in the last few weeks looks very much like global warming so the storms could be the beginning of a general change - that's according to the scientist advising the United Nations on climate change. PROFESSOR MARTIN PARRY INTERNATIONAL ADVISOR ON CLIMATE CHANGE It may be the result of simply extreme weather but it is the sort of event that we would expect to occur more in the future as a result of global warming. WHITE So it fits the pattern? PARRY It fits the pattern, it's a pattern we would expect with increasing frequency, increasing magnitude of storms and floods. WHITE In which case the water world in the Lowther pub may be a laboratory, a test run to show what climate change has in store for us. Whatever the cause, whether man made pollution is driving the process on or not, one thing is known for certain, the meteorological office's computer models show temperatures are rising around the world and that this warm up is accelerating, and they show temperatures in the UK are rising by between 1 and possibly 3 degrees over the next 80 years, and as temperatures rise, that means drier summers, even droughts, but they'll be warmer, wetter winters. HELEN YOUNG MET OFFICE We're expecting the weather to get wetter, not just across the United Kingdom but around the world, and the reason for that is if you have higher temperatures, you've got more evaporation taking place which ends up putting more water vapour in the atmosphere. If you have more water vapour in the atmosphere, eventually it condenses and falls back to the earth as rain. WHITE More and heavier rain is the forecast the government is getting from its own advisers on the impact of climate change. MERYLYN MCKENZIE HEDGER UK CLIMATE IMPACTS PROGRAMME The heavy rainfall that we're getting, the increased rainfall that we've had this autumn, is going to become the norm as the 21st century progresses. I wouldn't say that we're going to get the experience that we've had this year repeated every year, but they will become much more frequent. VIVIAN WHITE And in the successive rain storms, even people who thought they were particularly well defended against the effects of extreme weather found that now they weren't. It's Monday 6th November. Rain is falling heavily on the village of Mersham in Kent which lies on the River Star next to the town of Ashford. Sylvia Mansell is Mersham's local flood warden. If she's feeling vulnerable to the elements it's because just upstream from Mersham a dam is filling up, a flood defence system at Aldington, completed only 10 years ago to protect the communities below from repeated floods. It's designed to contain the water and only to release it at a controlled rate. In ordinary circumstances the East Star River should flow politely just up there. But in extraordinary circumstances like these, the waters get diverted to the Aldington dam behind me instead. Last night, the water level in the dam rose by 2 feet. It won't take very much rain for the water to come straight over the top, and that means down towards Mersham which everyone in the village understands all too well. SYLVIA MANSELL We're told that the dam will.. they expect it to overflow. They thought it was going to be between 3 and 5 this afternoon. They now tell us it's another 16 hours. We just don't know because they don't know how much water is going to come into the reservoir. WHITE At the Kent flood control room the Environment Agency are preparing, watching, waiting and warning the public and dealing with anxious calls on the flood help line. AGENCY WORKER 1 We're monitoring the situation closely. We've got people in the field. AGENCY WORKER 2 Some of them are blaming us, some of them are blaming councils, others are blaming neighbours for blocking watercourses or for diverting channels. AGENCY WORKER 3 A lot of people are now at the point where they've been flooded three or four times in the last few weeks and they're just saying well sod it, it's happened, it's going to happen again. WHITE But another phone call comes in and it's bad for Mersham. AGENCY We've had news from the guys on top of the embankment at Aldington and it's reached the maximum capacity and it's starting to discharge on the spill way. We're issuing a severe flood warning in the area. WHITE The water is coming over the dam and at Mersham no one quite knows how much water there'll be or whether it'll reach their house. It's Monday, nearly midnight now. Are you looking forward to the next couple of days? MRS MANSELL Not really, no. I mean we haven't had it bad here before. But I mean it's just a matter of time now. I 'm not king Canute, I can't stop it. WHITE And the morning reveals another changed landscape. It's daybreak at Aldington Dam. I was sat over there yesterday afternoon. It rained continuously until 5 this morning. The water is just pouring through. What had been built as a flood defence system is now like a giant bath filled to overflowing, and with all the taps, the river system draining into it, still full on. And the result - at Mersham Mrs Mansell's house is now in the centre of a small lake. She's joined the statistics of flood damage. MRS MANSELL We were being flooded from the road, water coming off the field. Within half an hour this dyke had overflowed and all the water came in here. WHITE And then the sandbags there, they were meant to be your line of defence. MRS MANSELL Yes, but it just comes in. I mean you can't stop it. Water will find it's own level. There's nothing you can do and you feel so helpless because you've just got to sit there and let it come in. But you know what is so irritating is that this wasn't supposed to happen. They built the dam and that was going to contain it. In fact it's worse. WHITE Have you ever seen anything like this before? ANDREW PEARCE FLOOD DEFENCE MANAGER No, I've never seen anything like this before and I don't think many people, even people who've been here since 40 years can remember a flood like this. WHITE So this is super exceptional? PEARCE This is a very good event for training new flood defence engineers and to understand what they are going to be facing for the rest of their career, yes. WHITE But it doesn't seem very good from any perspective in Mersham. The main street is living up to its ancient name - Flood Street. Mrs Blakely's cats are being delivered to higher, drier accommodation. Her house is the one right by the river bridge. VIVIEN BLAKELY We thought we were going to be protected by the Aldington flood scheme which seriously failed last night, and as you can see all around us this water came up very suddenly and quite alarmingly. WHITE So that's all your garden there. VIVIEN BLAKELY So far as the third tree on the corner there. WHITE And the morning after the night before, insurance is now on a lot of people's minds in Mersham. VIVIEN BLAKELY It's going to rocket isn't it. It's going to go through the roof. Obviously I haven't even told my insurers that situation because we came here happy in the knowledge that this was a place that wasn't going to flood. That's the reason we bought the house. We were told that since the Aldington scheme had been built, everything had been cured. WHITE But the insurance industry already mirrors knows everyone's secret. They have maps showing flood risk areas across the country on their computers, they're highlighted in blue and they show Mersham, and now they're going to update their maps. ANDREW DLUGOLECKI CGNU INSURANCE The recent events, floods and storms have acted as an alarm call. What we have now is very sophisticated computer models which will help us to redraw the insurance map of Britain, and that redrawing will mean some areas will pay more than others because the risk is more in those areas than the safer areas. WHITE And some will pay a lot more. DLUGOLECKI Some areas will pay a lot more and that is already happening. WHITE In York Eric Cowie is ready for the insurers. He's got a list of all the damage to his mother's house. ERIC COWIE The living room - table, chairs, suite, gas fire, the clock on the mantelpiece, the heater, carpets, underlay for the living room, the Hoover, the kitchen, the fridge, the cooker's been under water and even the base unit for the sink, and then of course wallpaper, paint and maybe a new door for the living room because that was one of these that's built like egg boxes and I think that will drop to bits. WHITE And the main business of the Lowther pub - they were thinking of opening in a few days - is now insurance. So on Tuesday Caroline, the pub's manager, and her boss Derek Binns, the licensee, looked the place over. CAROLINE So the 3rd November, when we were trying to move everything up, we had three canoeists come through that window. Well you can see how high up it was. WHITE The insurance assessors come to offer estimates. ASSESSOR A lot of people insure their goods and themselves but they don't insure their business loss and it's very important. WHITE Inside all the spoiled fittings are being ripped out and it looks as though the cost of the damage could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The licensee doesn't know if the insurers will pay out and nothing matters more to him now than his contents policy. DEREK BINNS [on telephone] I don't know. Will we get cover again? Will I get cover again? Well John Prescott says we'll get cover so... WHITE He learns that he will be covered for contents but there's a catch. So you got cover? DEREK BINNS We've got cover but that is it, they will not honour the policy after this time. It finishes now. It runs until next June but they've said this is it, they will not cover it. My policy is cancelled and dead and gone. WHITE Will York be left with an historic riverside area that insurance companies won't touch with a barge pole? DLUGOLECKI Where a place has been suffering flood fairly frequently I think the insurance industry will come to a crunch point where it will say 'We can't continue to prove cover here unless the basic situation, the fundamentals change, either the buildings are removed or proper defences are put in place to stop the water coming in'. WHITE And that brings in the government. The deputy prime minister, John Prescott, has toured flooded areas and heard how anxious people are about insurance. JOHN PRESCOTT The insurance companies is part of the equation and the problem. We are talking to them and I am concerned when you get frequent floods, they are now beginning to say to some, so I'm told, 'You can't have insurance'. WHITE Are you going to let insurance companies declare some people uninsurable because the flood defence is not adequate. JOHN PRESCOTT DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER Well I'm sure you would allow me to talk to them first, and that's what we're doing Vivian, and to be clear, I am concerned about that when I wade through these floods and talk to people who say 'This is the third flood that we've had at the moment'. Now two things come from that, one, the insurance companies I do believe have an obligation in these matters and they shouldn't just get out of it simply because there are frequent floods, secondly... WHITE And government? JOHN PRESCOTT Government should make sure we're doing everything to prevent... my wakeup call is to say to people these are going to be more frequent, we should do more about it. WHITE Which leaves the fundamental and potentially expensive issue for the government that existing flood defences themselves may be inadequate for climate change. At a cost of £10million York's defences were strengthened five years ago with walls and river barriers. BILL WOOLLEY YORK CITY COUNCIL The city's defences were built to withstand the floods that have taken place previously this century. The flood we had in the last week was 14 inches higher than any other flood this century. If we're now looking at floods reaching those sorts of heights we obviously need to review the height of our defences. WHITE The Aldington dam which overflowed was completed only 10 years ago and designed to cope with the worst rainfall you could expect in 100 years but again that was based on calculations about how much rain we used to have, they'd never seen rain that could do this. A report on this very scheme accepts that its performance could ultimately be reduced by climate change. All sorts of structures, dams, bridges, roads, may need to be redesigned. MERYLYN McKENZIE HEDGER UK CLIMATE IMPACTS PROGRAMME The past is no longer going to be a guide to the future. There are going to have to be very big decisions made about the scale of resources that are needed for investment to protect on climate change. WHITE Big decisions, big money. MERYLYN Big decisions, big money. WHITE Hasn't the name of the game changed. PRESCOTT I think so, yes. WHITE You've been talking millions. PRESCOTT Yes. WHITE Now it's hundreds of millions, it's billions isn't it? Big decisions, big money? PRESCOTT Well I don't think you and I exactly know that but the assessment that we'll make from these floods, which have been extremely exceptional, but I'm saying let's cater for that now. We will make that assessment after these floods, it's underway at the moment, and I will receive a report from the environment agency, it will be public, people will begin to see what we've got to do and what we have to do to deal with these floods. Government, at the end of the day, has an overall responsibility to provide for the security and the safety of its people. WHITE The scientific community now largely agree that global warming is here and that we're making it worse. More carbon dioxide gas in the air is trapping heat inside our atmosphere and this carbon dioxide is manmade, a product of burning fuel in power plants and planes and cars. So the government keeps on saying we should help by cutting down on carbon emissions. The day after the Aldington dam overflowed, on his way back from a global warming meeting, Mr Prescott stopped off in Ashford and made the case again. PRESCOTT I was in Brussels this morning talking about climate change and the agreements and hopefully I thought I could just have a look in Kent on the way and getting off at Ashford is a very useful place to do it. WHITE And off he went to flooded Mersham to inspect the damage there personally. And he went on plugging the same message there - we can all help to cut back global warming. PRESCOTT This has probably done more for the argument than anything I could say. WHITE The argument about taking global warming seriously? PRESCOTT Yes. WHITE And Mr Prescott went off to see Mrs Mansell, the flood warden. PRESCOTT Hello, well you must be the flood warden if you're living here. MRS MANSELL Yes I am. PRESCOTT Did you have much warning? MRS MANSELL Well we've been on flood alert.... WHITE Mrs Mansell hadn't but now in another unexpected deluge the Deputy Prime Minister headed towards her house. PRESCOTT Is this all right coming in your house, is it OK? MANSELL You're not going to make it any wetter than it already is... WHITE And Mr Prescott linked her flood to emissions and she disagreed, all in her flooded kitchen. PRESCOTT But it's more frequent now and therefore we have to make it more robust. MRS MANSELL But if you think it is... I mean what can Britain do? I mean if we all stopped using our cars it's not going to make a slightest bit of difference is it? PRESCOTT No, no. It's not a matter... I mean this simplifies it in a way, we've just been in Brussels negotiating for the final stages, the world, all the nations, and particularly developed nations, have got to cut out greenhouse gasses that we know is connected to this. Now in Europe they have more cars per head... WHITE But whatever we do we can only make a slight difference now. Scientists warn that even if there is international agreement on carbon emissions this will still only reduce the rate of global warming by a fraction. PROFESSOR MARTIN PARRY INTERNATIONAL ADVISOR ON CLIMATE CHANGE Even in a perfect world, if we chopped greenhouse gas emissions off at the knees, as it were, there is unfortunately a time lag built into the global climate system of about 50 to 100 years that would take this global warming forward before it evened out again. WHITE The scientists tell us that it's there in the system, that for the lifetime of everybody watching this programme it's going to happen, it's going to happen and we'd better be honest about that. PRESCOTT Yes, I agree it's marginal. It's the same argument that we've had from the negotiations we're having at The Hague now. When you look at what is happening and the scale of things, it is not going to change it substantially but it's a change in direction. WHITE It's because the difference we can make in our lifetimes is only marginal that scientists stress we have to learn to live with climate change. PARRY If we don't adapt, if we don't put in place the knowledge which I believe we have, on a year to year basis over the next 30, 40, 50 years, we will start to pay an increasingly high price for damage caused by climate change. WHITE And floods like those that hit householders in the last fortnight are only one of the dramatic effects of global warming. Sea levels are predicted to rise and the map of Britain itself is literally going to change and famous features of the UK's coastline lost. At Selsey Bill on the south coast the weather was helping a government advisor to make her point. MERYLYN McKENZIE HEDGER UK CLIMATE IMPACTS PROGRAMME On a day like today when you feel like... you do feel that the island territory is threatened. Selsey Bill is very much in the front line with other places like Hurst Castle Spit, East Head, Chesil Beach, these areas are liable to be lost with climate change later on this century with sea level rise, changed wave patterns, change of wave heights, change of tidal patterns. They are very, very vulnerable. WHITE Later this century these houses seem doomed to be lost to the sea, they cannot be defended. Sea levels are expected to rise by about 10 to 30cm over the next 50 years. Combined with tidal surges this puts miles of coast under threat. In East Anglia there are thousands of acres of agricultural land which lie below sea level at present defended by sea walls. Now the policy to deal with rising sea levels is radical and surprising. The environment agency's official responsible for planning East Anglia's future flood defences from the Thames to the Wash is Mark Dixon. MARK DIXON I live right by the sea, right by where the floods are going to happen. WHITE Are going to happen? MARK DIXON ENVIRONMENT AGENCY Are going to happen, they will happen. As global warming starts I know that I will be at greater risk as time goes on. One day it's going to happen and we've got to try and make sure that we deal with that in a responsible manner and sometimes that responsible message is hard for individuals affected. WHITE Ten days, ago while people up and down the country are being flooded out by the rain, Mark Dixon explains to Essex farmers that parts of their land may be flooded by the sea. The sea walls won't be built up. The sea will be allowed to flood low lying agricultural land. This policy is called 'Managed Retreat'. MARK DIXON The thing to bear in mind really is this, that we've borrowed these lands from the sea, the sea is now calling in its loan. That's what's happening, and we've got to cough up. WHITE And the farmers response to the idea that it's not considered cost effective to defend their land any more is polite incredulity. One of the farmers affected is Guy Smith. GUY SMITH Tell half the population of Holland that where they're living is on loan from the sea and one day the sea is going to have it back. The men in the white coats would come and take you away. WHITE Guy Smith's family have farmed here by the Essex coast for three generations, 600 acres of his farm lie below sea level. This is the sea wall which at present defends his land. SMITH I'm saying that if we let the line permanently retract then the Nation's land will be getting eaten away, smaller and smaller, and I just think somewhere along the line we've got to hold the line and stop the sea. DIXON Some people could say you're playing god with the map of Britain but in actual fact God is going to get there even if we don't. Whatever God you believe in, it's going to come back and bite us. WHITE Guy Smith fears that if the sea is allowed onto his land ultimately it may be impossible for him to continue working his family farm. Managed retreat could mean, for him personally, defeat. SMITH Sadness, insecurity, not sure what I'm handing on to my children, a break from the past... maybe letting down what my grandfather achieved by putting good sea defences in place. WHITE But the environment agency's man, Mark Dixon, certainly practices what he preaches. He lives just a few miles up the Essex coast facing the sea and he's thoroughly adapted his own house preparing it for the floods of the future. DIXON I know a tide is going to come through, through this door that tide will come. You're now inside my house and I've had to adapt my house to cope with that flooding. The floor is raised about a foot, quarry tiles on the floor, a drain here in each room to take that salt water away and this might look like ordinary plaster, in actual fact this is the same material that they have on the inside of swimming pools. WHITE So Mark, you've brought me into a house which is like a swimming pool? DIXON Like living inside of a swimming pool, exactly what it is. Living in a swimming pool, what's going to happen one day, the water will be through here a metre deep and I've adapted the house... electrics are up a metre and a half, woodwork which has been waterproofed and held together by bits of copper. WHITE Goodness me, so you're in a house that's designed to go underwater. DIXON Indeed it is, yes. These are hard realities, you can no longer... or no sooner cancel sea level rise than you can say 'I don't want winter any more'. It's going to happen, it's a fact of life. WHITE Climate change, now underway, will have huge and far reaching effects across the UK. Detailed impact studies have already been carried out in five British regions for the government. They show sea level rises threaten coastal property and beaches. Coastal ports face more violent storms and winds. Coasts, rivers and estuaries face floods and heavier winter rain but drier summers bring problems for water supply and the warm up even changes the crops that farmers grow with more vines and sunflowers being grown in the south. MERYLYN No one in the UK can opt out of climate change, it will effect everyone. PARRY We've got to bring all our know how, skills, technology and political will to bear in order to adapt to these sorts of events. MERYLYN The science community has been saying this for some time so it's not a shock to the science community, the science community hasn't necessarily been listened to always. WHITE And instead of following policies to adapt to climate change we're still doing some things that make the damage extreme weather can cause even worse like building on the natural floodplains. In flooded Kent that's still happening. The number of planning applications to build on the floodplain has tripled over the last four years nationally but in this part of the South East the pressure is greatest. At Tunbridge in Kent these new flats are being built on a floodplain, a development which the Environment Agency objected to but the local authority permitted. KATE TRENHAM ENVIRONMENT AGENCY We did advise the local planning authority against it. We don't know what other issues they had to consider but obviously when it comes down to the floodplain we were very much against it and we were very disappointed that this development took place. WHITE And this was what the place looked like after the recent storms, a building site underwater. KATE Certainly the events of the last few months have vindicated our advice. WHITE The Environment Agency says that when they object to developments, in about half of the cases they're either ignored or only partly listened to. This council says the site had commercial development on it before and that they did take account of some of the agency's objections. But one of the builders had reached his own conclusions. BUILDER Oh dear, incredible... we haven't seen anything like it at all. I suppose it was a good idea at the time but nobody had any... we didn't have so much rain at that particular time but global warming and everything now ain't it. This is going to be the norm ain't it. But I certainly wouldn't buy a site down here. WHITE One in ten people in the UK live on floodplains. There are over 2 million houses either built on them or within 100 metres of them. Nearly 400,000 homes were built on floodplains in the last 20 years, an estimated 28,000 of those in the last three years. Now Mr Prescott says he'll put new controls on local councils. PRESCOTT What we're now saying is we want you to review your plans on housing, particularly if housing is in floodplain areas and we're going to prevent the building of it in some cases unless you can show that sufficient and adequate flood defences are taken in certain parts of land where it's possible. I am toughening up the laws now of guidance in this new regulation, that's a role for government, it's been done in the last 12 months, it's now in its conclusion and that sounds to me as if it's a government learning its lessons and getting on with the job. WHITE Perhaps lots of people have learnt the lesson as the great clear up begins. ERIC It looks cleaner though doesn't it? And everything. WHITE In York Eric has taken his 89 year old mother back to look at the damage to her house. ERIC It's a lot better. MOTHER You just can't prevent it, it's water and water will get in anywhere. ERIC [adjusting heater] That's it, that'll warm it through a bit. WHITE She wants to move back in soon but it will take months to put her house in order. The team who run the Lowther pub just opposite had originally planned to reopen last Monday. The date has been pushed right back. DEREK So we're working continually day and night to get us open in five weeks because we do want to be open for Christmas, we don't want to lose this custom. It's just disastrous, absolutely disastrous. WHITE But Derek has now told us that the pub won't open until February. The floods have been a terrible national shock. In the last few weeks some 6,000 homes have been flooded, an estimated 500 million pounds worth of damage has been caused. Is this the first bill for global warming? MERYLYN It's going to affect everyone's lives in all sorts of different ways and everyone has got to start thinking about this very important issue now. PARRY It is a call, in a sense for us, to think very carefully about the need to adapt. To start adapting now and adapt year on year into the future and if we don't I think there will be a significant price to pay. WHITE Is the government being honest about the sheer scale of the changes that everybody may have to live through - is going to have to live through - because of climate change? PRESCOTT We are seeing the consequences and we are taking those actions. Now whether I'm calling for a better transport system or a wake up call to deal with more frequent extreme weathers, they're all part and parcel of educating a public that change is on the way. WHITE This has been an exceptional month, we've caught a glimpse of the future through Britain underwater.