ALMOST 1,800 families and householders will today be asking exactly how the Environment Agency has come to place their properties on its map of increased flooding risk.

The agency has done its best to explain and you must assume that, in the main, its calculations are sound if it’s going to make pronouncements that will have a significant effect on people’s insurance and house values.

But when you look at Jericho you have to wonder.

True, the Environment Agency is only putting its risk at once every 100 years and as our picture shows the last one was in 1955.

But the residents of Osney island will tell you how dangerous it is to assume you’ve got another 99 years before the next wave of water comes in, after suffering an apparent ‘one in 100 years flood’ three times in the past seven years.

The real question for Jericho has got to be why they are now considered an increased risk when they escaped the floods of the past two years. If 2007 didn’t drench them, what will?

Today residents can ask these very questions of the Environment Agency. We hope it can provide satisfactory answers.