Flood victims get council tax cut

Some Hull householders had to flee with a few belongings

Residents in Hull whose homes were damaged by flooding will receive a 25% discount on their council tax bills, it has been announced.

About 6,500 homes in the city were hit by flooding at the end of last month.

The announcement came as Hull City Council fought off criticism for delays in distributing relief money to the city's flood victims.

It started distributing cash payments of �250 to the worst-affected residents on Monday.

Council leader Carl Minns said a government allocation of �2.1m was not available to be distributed until seven days ago.

In the meantime he said the authority had been helping in other ways, such as cleaning up and clearing out damaged properties and replacing white goods.

He said: "I'm about to go into a committee to approve a 25% council tax discount for all householders affected by the floods.

"So help is happening, help is starting."

Mr Minns said Hull could not be compared with areas such as Rotherham, where payments were handed out a fortnight after the floods, because "the scale of the flooding in Hull was on a different planet".