The Environment Agency has produced a plan to deal with flooding in the River Thames over the next 100 years.

Houses built on flood plains will be protected by sea defences, while at the same time flood plains as yet undeveloped will be kept that way to allow rising sea levels to burst into areas not being lived upon, spend themselves and then recede.

This does not contradict the ambitious Thames Gateway plan for developmant of brownfield sites along the Thames, a spokesman said: ‘We will build houses on stilts.’ A huge ‘dam’ to hold back the sea, built across the river mouth from Shoeburyness in Essex to the north Kent shore, is also under consideration.