Flood victims have been promised they will get better protection - and warnings - in the future.

The head of the Environment Agency Barbara Young toured Stockbridge to look at the devastation left behind by last autumn's floods, and visited the home of Andrew Abbott in Florist Street.

And she said action would be taken to improve flood defences and warning systems once the findings of a report, commissioned by the EA and due out in June, had been studied.

However, she said the EA still needed a massive injection of funds to improve Yorkshire's inadequate flood defences.

She said: "I'm realistic enough to know that this isn't going to be solved overnight and we'll never prevent floods from happening. What we can do is anticipate where flooding is most likely and do something about it. Part of the problem is we've not been putting enough money into the system, but I can assure people that we will campaign to get more money.

"The current system for funding flood defences is far too complex and makes decision making complicated, and we are calling for a change. We also have got to hope that we don't have these amazing conditions again."

Mrs Young added that the EA was also looking at defences used in Holland which progressively halt the threat of flood waters.

Area flood defence manager David Wilkes said: "Rivers tend to look after themselves and if we dig three feet into the river bed here it will effect somewhere else.

"We are looking to make better use of the washlands and to improve the warning systems and the links with the local authority."

Stockbridge Neighbourhood Development Group was formed at a recent residents meeting of local flood victims.

Chairman Andrew Abbott said: "There are still a lot of angry people in Stockbridge, but we are looking to the future and we believe that as an official group we can be heard.

"What we don't want is people in another 57 years time standing in these gardens with the same problems that we have now."

Keighley North councillor Andrew Mallinson said: "I don't think it's just the defences, it's the enforcement against tipping and ensuring that the river is maintained that needs to be looked into.

"Because there has been so much development upstream in the flood plains it is affecting the river here. We want the problem solved here, but don't want it moved down the river so it affects somewhere else."

Flood defences in England and Wales are funded primarily through government grants and levies raised on local councils set by 10 regional flood defence committees.

The Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee agreed a 10 per cent increase in funding for Yorkshire when it met in February.

* Bradford council has announced a series of minor repairs for roads in the flood-hit Stockbridge area. Workmen are carrying out verge hardening in Athol Street leading into Florist Street. Minor resurfacing work, including pot hole filling in Worth Avenue and Hallows Road, and a day's jetting have also been funded.