Flood-proofing homes now will prevent future misery

One thing most people would agree on: Britain urgently needs new homes.

- JAMES MOORE

But the misery inflicted by Storm Bert underlines an important point; it matters where you build them - and it matters how you build them.

A press release that emerged in the wake of Rachel Reeves’s Budget loudly trumpeted the £5bn earmarked for “housing reform” and the building of thousands of new homes. While such figures have to be taken with a pinch of salt when they come from governments, the chunky numbers and the tone (the Budget will “turbocharge the delivery of 1.5 million homes”) were nonetheless a statement of intent. A welcome one.

But as Bert’s victims survey the wreckage of their homes, commence meetings with loss adjusters and face up to the cold and damp reality of just how long it can take to make a waterdamaged property liveable again (up to a year in some cases), it still doesn’t appear that the government has learned the lesson of this – and the storms that came before it.

Instead, the attitude appears to be: “Let’s get ’em built and hope the insurance industry picks up the pieces when waters pour in”. As they inevitably will.