POLITICIANS are to come up with new ways of preventing further devastating floods in Blackburn and Darwen.

To comply with new Government regulations, the borough council has been told it must develop a ‘flood risk management strategy’.

It comes after severe flooding across the country in 2007 prompted the Government to establish the Flood and Water Management Act, which designates the borough council as the ‘Lead Local Flood Author-ity’.

The borough was badly hit by flooding in 2012, in particular in Darwen where blocked culverts caused chaos on two occasions.

The council has since launched a number of measures as it bids to prevent floods, or make residents better prepared for them, including the creation of new Flood Watch groups.

At Thursday’s meeting of the council’s executive board, environment executive member Coun Jim Smith will detail the proposal to his colleagues. In his report, he will explain the council’s new responsibilities with regards to flooding.

A document prepared ahead of the meeting says: “The council, as Lead Local Flood Authority, is required to produce a strategy for managing local flood risk. This means flooding from surface water run-off, flooding from ground water and flooding from ordinary watercourses.

"The Local Flood Risk Management Strategy will inform, and direct, how the council and other flood risk management bodies, such as the Environment Agency and United Utilities, manage local flood risk.

"It will help inform funding bids for flood risk management studies and works, and help inform the maintenance of drainage infrastructure within the borough, among other things.”

The new legislation gives the council new powers as the flood authority, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Aff-airs will provide £150,000 in funding until March next year.