PM praises East Lancashire flood response (From Blackburn Citizen)

PM praises East Lancashire flood response

9:04am Friday 29th June 2012 in News By Bill Jacobs , Local government reporter

PRIME Minister David Cameron has praised emergency services in East Lancashire for the handling of the weekend floods.

Mr Cameron made the comments in response to local Tory MP Jake Berry at Prime Minister’s questions in the House of Commons.

The Rossendale and Darwen backbencher told the Prime Minister: “On Friday night, the towns of Bacup, Craw-shawbooth, and Darwen, were subject to unprecedented flooding when the River Irwell and the River Darwen burst their banks at the same time.

“Will you join me in congratulating the emergency services on working through the night and, in particular, the residents of Crawshawbooth, who came out in the morning to clean up their village so that it was able to welcome the Olympic torch less than 12 hours later?”

The Prime Minister replied: “I certainly join you in praising the emergency services.

“These were really very dangerous and damaging floods, caused by a huge amount of rainfall over a very short period.

“The emergency services performed superbly, and I hope to go and see that for myself, but now we are in the recovery phase, and the phase when people start to look at going back into their homes.

Mr Cameron cont-inued : “There will be all sorts of questions about insurance, and about how we can help, and I am sure that he will make those arguments here in the Commons and that the Government will do all they can to help.”