Utility companies need to invest urgently in flood defences at power stations and sewage works to avoid a repeat of this summer’s flooding crisis in Gloucestershire, a report today recommends.

Thousands of homes were left without running water or electricity after a month’s worth of rain fell in just 12 hours - submerging two key substations and a water treatment plant in the process.

It prompted the largest peacetime operation seen in the country since the end of the Second World War, as millions of litres of water were drafted into the county.

A two-month inquiry by the county council’s scrutiny committee today published 75 recommendations in a detailed report looking into how the crisis was handled.

It called for permanent flood defences to be built around the Walham and Castlemeads electricity substations, in Gloucester, after the floods exposed the vulnerability of the region’s power supply.

Castlemeads was switched off at the height of the crisis, leaving 42,000 people without power for 24 hours. And up to 600,000 people also came within a few inches of a mass blackout, after waters nearly submerged the Walham site.

The National Grid and Central Networks were told to have contingency plans in place to provide alternative supplies if either is taken out of action in the future.

When the flood waters flooded the Mythe Treatment Plant, in Tewkesbury, 140,000 homes across the region were left without running water for up to two weeks. It again highlighted how easily a system, providing a basic human need, could be disrupted.

The inquiry called on Severn Trent Water to establish a second water supply pipeline into the county to ensure there was a back-up supply in the event of another deluge.

Severn Trent were ordered to "announce as soon as possible when these works will begin and when they will be completed".

Utility providers were also advised to share their flood contingency plans and work more closely with local government and other agencies.

And a single agency with overall responsibility for maintaining rivers and flood plains should be established by the government, the report concludes.

It claims the current system is "not effective" and insists the new agency would make it simpler for people to know who to contact and who was responsible for specific problems.

Formal hearings, public drop-in sessions, surveys and written submissions were used to compile the 144-page dossier, which aimed to learn lessons from the crisis.

On July 20, Gloucester received one-and-a-half times the average rainfall for the whole month in just one day, in what was later described as the worst flooding in the UK in modern times.

Roads were plunged into chaos with 10,000 people left stranded on the M5 alone. Hundreds of drivers abandoned their cars and spent the night at Tewkesbury Abbey, which itself came close to being flooded for the first time in centuries.

A total of 4,000 homes and more than 500 businesses were flooded.

Over 800 people had to flee their homes and millions of pounds worth of damage was caused.

Three people lost their lives during the floods, while many residents are still living in caravans and other temporary accommodation as they wait for their homes to be repaired.

The Gloucestershire Flood Relief Fund, established after donations poured in from all over the world, has raised over £1.2 million for the victims of the floods.