“THE fight isn’t over for flood-hit Somerset” – that was the message Somerset County Council leader John Osman delivered to the world’s biggest flood prevention conference.

Cllr Osman (pictured) presented the ‘Somerset Flooding Story’ of last winter and the recovery effort at the London-based Flood Defence and Protection Expo at the ExCel Arena last Friday.

He used his talk to raise awareness of The 20 Year Flood Action Plan for Somerset and touched on his positive, on-going talks with Defra on providing the lion’s share of the £2.7million interim funding needed to set up the Somerset Rivers Authority.

Cllr Osman said: “I will never stop banging the drum for our county with central Government and lead the call for the resources to rise up and meet our needs. “A lot of work has been done already.

As I speak, flood alleviation schemes at Beer Wall and Muchelney are progressing well.

The people of Somerset showed staggering resilience in the face of adversity, and with the national and, at points, the global media spotlight well and truly upon them earlier this year.

“We need the continued support of Government to ensure flooding of the scale and duration that we have witnessed does not happen again.”