When I visited Christine’s bungalow in Trowell, Nottinghamshire, and asked if I should take my shoes off, she joked: “I wouldn’t worry, I’ll be getting a new carpet soon enough when it floods again.” She’s got another good one about the time she, a 70-year-old great-grandmother, had to climb through her conservatory window because her front and back doors had been sealed shut by flood barriers. “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry,” she says. And there is a lot to cry about: mainly the fact that her home is unsellable due to multiple floods.

In 2020, the brook that backs on to Christine’s home burst its banks and water poured into her house, as well as the homes of her neighbours Jackie, 67, and Rhona, 76. As we sit around a table drinking tea, they tell me about having to rip out their floorboards, skirting boards, kitchen cupboards and entire bathrooms. Doors had to be taken off their hinges and thrown into skips. Fridges, washing machines, furniture, all joined the pile.

Fortunately, their insurers paid for their houses to be refurbished and for furniture to be replaced. Property Flood Resilience assessments were carried out by the Environment Agency (EA), the government body responsible for flood management. As not enough houses were affected, the optimum but most expensive solution – to install embankments and walls to stop water from topping the brook – was not implemented. (For context, the EA has faced an overall cut in its funding of 50% during the past decade.)

Instead, the cheaper alternative of flood-proofing individual houses was offered. Christine, Jackie and Rhona had a mix of flood doors and barriers installed, and were provided with pumps to remove any water that did make it into their properties. In 2023, having been delayed by Covid, the work was finally completed. Eight months later, their houses flooded again.

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