Sir Michael Pitt today published his government-commissioned report on the anniversary of the devastating floods which hit Hull and Sheffield back in 2007.

Almost 5,000 households have still not returned to their homes following last year's natural disaster, a figure Sir Michael claims will leave people "shocked".

In his report Sir Michael calls for building regulations to change to make new houses more flood-resistant.

Sir Michael said: "First of all, there's the problem that when you do get water into a house because of flooding, if the water is there and it has to dry out, that can take a long period of time. That can take longer if the wrong building materials are used."

In the report, Sir Michael also claims there is no evidence that sandbags work in holding back flood waters.

As well as a change in building regulations, he is also calling for local authorities to create electronic maps of ditches, streams and rivers to ascertain who is responsible for drainage.

Currently, there can be up to six owners responsible for one site. Surface water which did not drain away caused much of the flooding last year.

The 2007 floods left 13 dead and 44,600 homes flooded as well as causing £3bn worth of damage.

Yorkshire and the Midlands were among the worst hit while Humber and south-west England were also severely affected.

The Pitt Review contains 92 recommendations on how Britain can better equip itself in the event of another flooding disaster.

These include:

*Local authorities must be given a more clearly defined leadership role in overseeing the maintenance of drainage networks.

*The Met Office and the Environment Agency should have a joint nerve centre from which to issue better flood warnings based on their collective information.

* Flood warnings must be easier to understand. Sir Michael said some warnings last year were "given in very technical terms which I think the public found very difficult to understand".

*Utility companies - water and power firms - should safeguard key infrastructure sites.