The Government has announced that it will take action to prepare the UK for future floods after an independent review warned urgent measures were needed to address the fact that the risk of floods was becoming greater.

The announcement will provide relief to home insurance policyholders who were fearing the worst when insurance companies recently announced that they would stop providing flood cover to homeowners unless the government could pro-active action to protect the UK from the possibilities of flood damage in future.

Sir Michael Pitt, who has published his Government-commissioned report into last summer's devastating floods, said ministers must set out how they would rapidly improve the UK's resilience to such events.

Among his 92 recommendations, he has included measures to improve forecasting, better protect the public against the dangers of dams bursting, change building regulations to make homes more resilient to floods and better co-ordinate different authorities and organisations to deal with flooding.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn promised an "action plan" in the autumn and said legislation would be brought forward in the next parliamentary session to act on many of the review's recommendations.