YORK MP Hugh Bayley warned today he expected a long-awaited report on the city's flooding dangers to reveal the risks were growing.

The MP has also spoken of his concerns about delays in publishing the report, which was commissioned by the Environment Agency in the wake of the floods of November 2000.

Experts were asked to produce a computer model to help the agency assess future risks of a repeat of the 2000 disaster, or one even greater in scale.

The agency may invest up to £30 million on new defences along the Ouse between Skelton and Goole over the coming decade, but has said it cannot make any decisions until the report is ready.

York councillors attacked the delays in completing the report in January. Now Mr Bayley has asked in the Commons for it to be published within the next two weeks, before a Westminster debate on the Government's flooding policy on March 13.

He said: "It is now more than two years since the devastating floods hit York. The Environment Agency has been carrying out a major study of the Ouse catchment, the larger of the two rivers that flow through York, to enable it to predict more accurately the risk of flooding in future.

"Hundreds of householders in York whose houses were flooded two years ago are waiting for that study, because on it hangs the cost-effectiveness of improving flood defences that would protect them from further floods."

The agency said last month that the model was completed last year, but there had been difficulties in assessing its accuracy because the Ouse was such an unusual river, with three main tributaries and a very large flood plain. It said the results should be known to the agency by late spring, but it might be late summer before the implications were outlined to the public.

The agency did not reveal the conclusions of the report. But Mr Bayley told the Evening Press he thought it might well show the problem was worse than had been anticipated.

"I expect the report will show that we are more likely to have a major flood like November 2000 in future," he said.

Leader of the House Robin Cook said he would draw the agency's attention to Mr Bayley's request.

Updated: 10:44 Tuesday, March 04, 2003