Flood-hit Britain now 'sopping wet sponge'

BRITAIN is facing its wettest January in history after floods caused chaos and misery yesterday.

- Jan Disley

Just five days in, some places have already had more rain than their monthly average.

Professor Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said: "The decorations have been taken down, but the flood warning map of England is currently lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Storm after storm this autumn and winter has made Britain a sopping wet sponge and there is nowhere for any extra rain to go.

"After Storm Henk hit us on January 2, all that extra water is running straight off the landscape and our rivers are swelling up."

Storm Henk has left the nation battered and sodden with swathes of the countryside under water.

More than 1,000 homes have been flooded this week and a major incident was declared in Nottinghamshire where the River Trent broke its banks, deluging more than a hundred properties.

The village of Gunthorpe was practically cut off. Karen Kennedy, who lives in nearby Woodborough said she had spent £30,000 on flood defences - in vain.

She said: "It's devastating. You could cry. We're trapped here now." Tom Randall, MP for Gedling in Nottinghamshire, said: "I invited the Floods Minister to talk to the flood hit residents today. One told us this is the first time in 100 years that his street has flooded like this." 

Another 350 homes were hit in Leicestershire, which at one point had more than 40 roads closed.

Richard Bower, who farms near the River Penk in Staffordshire, said the land has flooded as many times in the past month as he would expect it to in a year. Everywhere, cars and lorries are stranded.

At the Duke of Marlborough near Ipswich, pub quizzers had an impromptu lock-in when their routes. home were cut off by floods.