Lessons must be taken from floods

Following the summer floods, Andy Goring, new chairman of the Concrete Pipeline Systems Association (CPSA), is to write to politicians outlining an action plan to tackle the problems facing the UK's sewerage and drainage infrastructure.

The CPSA claims that there is a lack of accurate information available on the state of Britain's underground infrastructure and that a thorough survey is required followed by a national investment programme.

Goring said: "We would like a thorough examination. The country is never far away from a breakdown in sanitation and an upturn in disease."

The association is calling for the capacity of storm drainage and sewerage systems to be increased by a minimum of 50% to allow for housing growth and for the durability of new pipeline systems to be set at a minimum of 100 years.