A CALL for more investment in infrastructure has gone out following the devastating floods on the Somerset Levels earlier this year.

Several people gave their personal perspective of how they were affected by the flooding this year and in 2012 at an Emergency Planning Society study day at the Willows and Wetlands Centre, in Stoke St Gregory.

Keynote speaker Cllr Gill Slattery said having such a large area under water for so long had had an adverse effect on people’s health and wellbeing, while officials and volunteers had worked long hours for many weeks, while many VIPs had visited.

Mrs Slattery called for much improved investment in infrastructure, as has happened in the Norfolk Broads.

John Rowlands, of the Environment Agency, provided some statistics in his presentation – an estimated 600million cubic metres of rain fell on the Tone and Parret catchement to the end of January, while on February 3 the highest waves in the world were in the western approaches to Britain, on top of high tides.

Police, civil contingencies, highways representatives and local businesses all contributed.