There's no doubt at all what caused the devastating floods which hit Lewes, Uckfield and other places in the Ouse Valley six months ago.

Unprecedented storms on October 12 produced huge quantities of rain which fell on ground already saturated by weeks of bad weather.

The water had nowhere to go but into people's homes and shops. The result was chaos of a kind these towns have never seen before.

An official report makes the enormity of the storm clear and stark. Little could have been done at the time to alleviate distress for thousands of people because of the huge quantities of water.

But it is clear that building homes in low-lying areas contributed to the disaster in two ways. Firstly, they increased the run-off. Secondly, they were put in vulnerable places.

The rainfall that day was the heaviest there has been in the Ouse Valley for decades if not centuries. In the past it would have been dismissed as a freak.

But, with increased storms caused by global warming, no one can say a similar storm will not happen again within a much shorter space of time.

Urgent thought must be given to seeing whether measures such as increasing the height of river banks or walls would alleviate or prevent future flooding.

And a message must go out to Environment Secretary John Prescott who is planning thousands more homes in Sussex.

Flood the county with new homes and many of them will have to go in places where they will be flooded.