Luke Pollard MP, Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary, responding to Professor Balmforth’s report into the Whaley Bridge reservoir incident, said:

“This report shows that the systems for ensuring the safety of our reservoirs were not as robust as they should have been. The lessons from this incident must now be urgently learned by all the organisations and agencies who are responsible for owning, managing, regulating and monitoring our reservoirs, and there must be scrutiny to make sure that checks and upgrades actually happen.

“Taking time to learn lessons is prudent and sensible, which begs the question why Ministers refused to agree to Labour’s common sense request of a review of their much-criticised response to the flooding following Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge.”