Storm Desmond brought exceptional amounts of rain at the weekend, causing serious flooding in north western parts of the United Kingdom – especially across Cumbria.
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Mr Farron, who has his family home in Kendal and rents a room in London during the week, claims that in nearby Elterwater 80 per cent of properties are second homes or holiday cottages.
Officers were called to reports that the man had fallen into the swollen river shortly after 10am yesterday. Police confirmed that the body was that of an elderly man who was reported missing on Sunday.
“Formal identification has not yet taken place”.
David Cameron said a multi-million pound flood defence system built in the north-west county after floods in 2005 was “not good enough” to protect houses from the horror weather.
In Carlisle, Cumbria’s administrative centre, hundreds of homes were without electricity and troops were helping emergency workers to evacuate residents from flooded streets. After inspecting the flood defences, he said: “It’s an absolutely horrific thing to happen”.
While local leaders demanded an investigation, Floods Minister Rory Stewart defended the government, arguing that defenses had slowed down the water to allow more time for evacuations.
“Of course we will learn the lessons that we can from this unprecedented event”.
Schools were closed and hospital services remain suspended in the area.
Some 42,000 homes and businesses in Lancaster, Morecambe and Carnforth were left without power after “unforeseen flood damage” at a substation in Lancaster caused them to lose supply on Monday.
By Monday morning, a majority of it was restored – with only 7,408 homes still cut off, according to power company Electricity North West. And in Northern Ireland, major clean-up operations were under way in parts of Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh after weekend flooding damaged homes and businesses.
Cumbria Police said had been “some isolated incidents” of flooded properties being targeted by “a couple of opportunistic individuals”.
The rail network in Cumbria remained “basically at a standstill”, he added.
British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted that he was preparing to visit badly affected areas Monday.
The Met Office is now warning of more rain this week with yellow alerts covering Tayside, Fife, Stratchclyde, the Borders and south-west Scotland until Thursday.
A £2.3bn programme of investment has been announced for the six years from 2015 to 2021.
“They were all devastated but at the same time they were so nice and welcoming and told us how grateful they were for our efforts”.
She expressed “huge sympathy” to those affected again by flooding in the region.
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“Local communities, businesses and emergency services continue to show great resilience and we need to see the Environment Agency working with infrastructure providers as they fight to restore power and utilities”. “Because we have a strong/resilient economy we are actually increasing money on flood defences”, he said.
