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UK floods: more gales and downpours forecast as cleanup continues - live coverage UK floods: more gales and downpours forecast as Storm Frank approaches - live coverage
(35 minutes later)
9.06am GMT09:06
A severe flood warning remains for York city centre and areas of Huntington, Tang Hall, Osbaldwick and Foss Islands. The EA says it is testing repairs on the Foss Barrier that were put in place during daylight hours. Levels on the River Ouse have fallen from a peak of 5.2m to 4.8m during Monday, but levels will remain high and flood water will remain in affected areas throughout this week. Rainfall is forecast on Wednesday which may have further impacts for this area, says the EA.
8.48am GMT08:48
More rain, more flooding says the Met Office.
Greatest impact from #StormFrank will be rain. Unfortunately more #flooding looks likely. Big rainfall totals. Simon pic.twitter.com/lzBgkpJSG7
8.45am GMT08:45
Martin Kettle
Martin Kettle addresses the north-south theme cited by several northern politicians and the Yorkshire Evening Post in a powerful editorial yesterday. In his column, he writes:
As the Bible says, it rains on the just and the unjust alike. But you only have to look at the London focus of so much infrastructural renewal, never mind the mere existence of the Thames Barrier, to see why there is a genuine grievance here. London gets the projects it wants , while the people of Kirkstall and Rochdale have to brush the water and the dirt out of their flooded homes.
The most important thing about the Christmas floods of 2015 is, without doubt, the misery of having your house, your street, your village and now even your city under water. But it’s almost as important that it is our country, northern England, where this is happening, though perhaps it just doesn’t feel like that in Chelsea or Shoreditch. This is a test of national solidarity as well as government.
Unless we also see the floods as an episode in the continued loosening and perhaps even the collapse of the UK, we will not see their full danger and potency. It will take more than a visit by Cameron in his wellies to persuade the victims that the government is on their side. It will take more even than government money, projects and activism, even supposing these are on offer. It will take an enduring conviction that the north matters just as much as anywhere else in Britain. And at the moment, that conviction just is not there.
8.41am GMT08:41
Floods minister Rory Stewart has defended the cuts made in the previous coalition government to flood defences saying that £1.8bn had been spent in the last parliament.
He told Good Morning Britain: “Underlying the central problem I’m afraid is the weather. We have never had rain like this before. We have been dealing with this for nearly three-and-a-half weeks now. We started with more rain than had ever been seen in a day in the United Kingdom. We have had more rain than has ever happened in this month.
“Rivers here which haven’t flooded in this way for 75 years are 15 feet up. I’m afraid that is the fundamental problem here. We are spending an enormous amount of money on flood defences. In the end what is beating us is this relentless rain.”
On the Today programme, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, called for cross-party agreement on a long term plan. “We cannot be in a situation where there is stop-start investment,” he said. McDonnell rejected the argument that money for foreign aid should be spent on flood defence at home, saying that aid money is being spent on tackling climate change at source.
8.31am GMT08:318.31am GMT08:31
As communities continue to clean up after the Boxing Day floods, gales and downpours are forecast from this evening, with Cumbria and southern and central Scotland most at risk of more disruption from Storm Frank.As communities continue to clean up after the Boxing Day floods, gales and downpours are forecast from this evening, with Cumbria and southern and central Scotland most at risk of more disruption from Storm Frank.
The Met Office has issued amber warnings with up to 40mm of persistent rain expected widely across Northern Ireland, west and south-west Scotland, Wales and north-west England - flooded by Storm Desmond - by tomorrow. Twice that is possible - 80mm - over high ground, with some exposed areas in south-west Scotland and Cumbria warned they could be hit by 100-150mm. It said the conditions were “not unusual for this time of year” and comparable with the storms of the winter of 2013-14.The Met Office has issued amber warnings with up to 40mm of persistent rain expected widely across Northern Ireland, west and south-west Scotland, Wales and north-west England - flooded by Storm Desmond - by tomorrow. Twice that is possible - 80mm - over high ground, with some exposed areas in south-west Scotland and Cumbria warned they could be hit by 100-150mm. It said the conditions were “not unusual for this time of year” and comparable with the storms of the winter of 2013-14.
Here is what we know so far this morning:Here is what we know so far this morning: