Boston floods: Calls for Poles to sign up to alerts

Large parts of the town were affected by the tidal surge in December 2013.

Not enough Polish residents are signing up to receive flood alerts in a town devastated by a tidal surge last year, the Environment Agency has said.

About 200 properties in Boston were flooded after the River Haven burst its banks in December.

But less than a fifth of residents have signed up to the agency's Floodline, the agency said.

The Lincolnshire town's large Polish community has been invited to register at Boston Borough Council later.

'Communication problem'

Jerzy Banasik, a flooding risk officer with the Environment Agency, said there was a "great deal of work to do in Boston" after just 16% of residents signed up.

"We think that the spoken word is much more difficult to understand to foreign nationals than the written one," he said.

"We think receiving it as an email or perhaps a text message could help solve this communication problem."

He said there were now five ways to receive the alerts, including on Twitter.

At the event at the council headquarters, people can also register to vote and get help with passport renewals.

The tidal surge caused the highest water levels ever recorded on the River Haven - more than 20ft (6m) above sea level and higher than the floods of 1953.