Flood defences inadequate to cope with Storm Ciarán

Inspections carried out by the Environment Agency, it says, rated defences as poor or very poor, from flood walls and embankments to outfall pipes and culverts.

Warnings were issued all across southern England, with winds of up to 95mph recorded on November 1. All flights from Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney were cancelled.

“Of England’s 64,000 ‘high consequence’ flood defences, 4,200 were rated as either condition 4, meaning poor, or 5, meaning very poor, in 2022,” Greenpeace’s Unearthed report says. “This means that 7% of the country’s most important flood defences are deemed to be in a poor state, according to data obtained under freedom of information rules. Nearly 900 of the defences – 1.3% of the total – were judged to be in very poor condition.”

Not all of the flood defences are managed by the Environment Agency – more than a quarter are privately owned and were nearly twice as likely to be in poor condition, Unearthed says.

Coastal areas in the southwest counties of Devon and Cornwall were flooded, including the town of Looe, where an early high tide flooded the streets.

In France, hurricane-strength winds killed at least one person and falling trees and branches took out power lines, leaving 1.2 million people without power.

According to the Energy Networks Association, almost 17,000 homes in the UK had power cuts and the fire service was called out to at least 17 incidents, many of which involved vehicles stranded in flood water.

The Association of British Insurers said flood damage cost the UK £700 million (€800 million) a year.