New boats to help deal with flooding emergencies

Flooding hit Lincolnshire severely in 2007

Lincolnshire is to get ten new boats to help deal with local flood emergencies.

It's part of a package of a quarter of a million pounds government funding which will also be spent on training and equipment.

The announcement has been made to coincide with Exercise Watermark the largest such operation Lincolnshire has ever been involved in and which starts today. It will test how emergency teams deal with flooding.

The deputy head of the county's emergency planning team, Ian Reed, said the new boats would increase their capabilities to respond to emergencies: "It's fantastic news for the county, certainly fantastic news for Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue and will really supplement their capability to respond to incidents such as the one we're going to test in Exercise Watermark.

"Not only just good news for Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, of course, but good news for the Lincolnshire resilience as a whole because it increases our capability to respond to emergencies.

"It's the full package. Ten boats and training for the teams who will be manning them."