[Gordon Steadman]

We live in a house built in 1900 out of granite. It's at the bottom of a long hill, all farmed. The ground at the back of the house is four feet above the inside floor level. In heavy rain and wind we have no damp enter the house at all. This is because someone used what has become a diminishing feature of human existence. Common sense. There are deep channels cut to divert water where it will do no damage and these feed into ditches alongside the roads. There is no mains drainage.  Just once in the two years we have been here, I've seen the ditches almost full of water and that was after a cloudburst the like of which I have never witnessed. (The bunnies over the road almost drowned but that's another story)

All the houses in our small hamlet were farm workers places, except ours of course, we have the boss man's place :-)  Built to live in not just to make money.

I wonder how much the councils were bunged to allow building on flood plains.