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utILIty WeeK | 21st - 27th February 2014 | 7 Special report A s the floodwaters start receding and inundated areas begin the slow process of rebuilding, the political blame game is well under way. Prime minister David Cameron has done his best to be seen to be in control of the situation. He pledged that "money is no object" , although he later made it clear that those limitless funds applied only to "this relief effort". "Whatever money is needed, we will spend it," he said. In total, an additional £130 million has been allocated to repairing and maintaining flood defences. Taking the chance to score some politi- cal points, the Conservatives were keen to advertise that this money was only available because the government has kept a lid on spending and reduced the deficit. Elsewhere, environment secretary Owen Paterson – who has been out with an eye operation at the start of this month – has been labelled "the fool of the floods" for an apparent lack of action despite chairing a number of Cobra meetings. Stepping in while Paterson recovered was the communities' secretary, Eric Pickles. He apologised for relying on the Environment Agency's advice: "I thought we were work- ing with experts," he said. A day later, he told the House of Commons his admiration for the agency's work "exceeds no one". Labour blasted the government for ill- judged spending cuts and then reversing them with the "extra" funding. Maria Eagle, Labour's shadow environment secretary, accused the government of "fiddling the figures" to show funding had increased. She claimed there had been a fall from £670 mil- lion in 2010/11 to £573 million in 2011/12. Ed Miliband highlighted the proposed redundancies of 550 Environment Agency flooding staff as an example of how the cuts would hamper recovery efforts and the ability to prevent flooding in the future. The redundancies are now on hold, at least until the "current flooding has subsided". People may have responded to the floods by showing some Dunkirk spirit, but not at Westminster. Political weather Mathew Beech confirming that prolonged and persistent heavy rainfall is causing groundwater levels to rise, leading to sewer flooding. This has spurred it to commit to invest £4.4 million to protect customers from sewer flooding in at- risk places, while Thames Water is having a tough time of it too, supplying water to one of the worst hit areas in the country. According to Water UK, in the next five years, companies will spend £25 billion on a range of different measures suited to their regions, to ensure resilient water and sew- age systems. Power companies will have to invest too. UKPN alone, which covers London, the South East and East of England, has paid almost £3 million to customers who were without power during the St Jude and December storms. The network industry is still coming to terms with the scale of the damage and its costs, and with a government-mandated review due to report in April, things should become clearer this spring. A UKPN spokesperson said: "Only when the weather settles into a more predictable pattern will we be able to fully assess the costs." There's the rub: might predictable pat- terns be a thing of the past? EYE OF THE STORM Severn Trent A number of Severn Trent customers were le without water last weekend as the company faced a series of weather-related disruptions, including water supplies in Worcester and Gloucestershire downed by power failures. Emergency generators were set up and pumps deployed in Worcester, Bewdley, Shrewsbury and Ironbridge. WPD 150,000 Western Power Distribution customers across the South West, south Wales and the Midlands had to be reconnected last weekend as the regions were battered by high wind, damaging power lines. Engineers were hampered by winds gusting at 100mph and restricted access to roads and bridges due to fallen trees and flooding. SES 116,000 Sutton and East Surrey Water customers came close losing their water supplies as the Kenley Water Treatment Works narrowly escaped a forced closure a er flooding threat- ened to overwhelm it last week. Employees worked "24 hours a day" deploying sandbags and other defences, while pumps were installed to take water away from the site. UKPN More than 370,000 UK Power Networks customers were affected by last weekend's storm. The network dra ed in extra front line and back office staff to cope with all the power inter- ruptions and "the vast majority" of properties were back on supply within 12 hours. Southern Water Southern Water is spending is spending an extra £100,000 a day to keep its sewers work- ing, as the South East experiences the worst series of storms in more than ten years. The water company has a fleet of tankers as well as mobile pumps working round the clock throughout key points in the region.