Liberal Democrats call for flood protection for infrastructure

4.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 25th Jul 2007

Flooding

After Monday night's operation to save Walham electricity substation, Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary Chris Huhne has said that this week's flooding has demonstrated the urgency of protecting key infrastructure. Firefighters, military personnel and civilian engineers battled for two days to prevent the substation in Gloucester going underwater and power being cut to a quarter of a million homes across the south-west. Six severe flood warnings are still in place, in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.

Chris Huhne said "The government needs to look at protecting critical infrastructure like the Walham switching station and the Mythe water treatment works as an urgent matter given the experience of these floods. The government's own review work as long ago as 2004 called for key infrastructure to be protected, but this seems to be one of the areas that has been overlooked by Defra since then."