FLOODING will always be a possibility in a river city. As this newspaper has reported on numerous occasions, homes and companies have often had to batten down the hatches as a bloated Severn has come knocking on doors.

Disturbingly though, there now appears to be a new phenomenon about to cause us all fresh headaches.

And that is the housing development which has been placed too near a brook.

In summer, such streams may appear inconsequential, a mere foot or so wide. Little more than a ditch, perhaps.

Surely, such insignificant trickles could present no problems for the householder?

Not so. For as the unfortunate people in our story on page 5 have discovered, such flows are far from harmless.

Warndon Villages was built during the development mania of the 1980s, when the then city council was intent on driving a metaphorical bulldozer through the old city boundaries.

Long before the world had woken up to global warming, the tsunamis of red brick advanced unopposed across Worcestershire's green fields.

However, there are no easy answers. No one is suggesting that we suddenly stop building houses.

But in a shrinking environment planners must start to take into account possible problems before the contractors move in.

Sadly, in a county notorious for floods, such sentiments will be of little comfort to those people now living in fear of disaster.