I was gratified to receive comments to my post on my telegraph blog that were largely in agreement with my thoughts.  Especially it was good to get a comment from Rachel who confirmed that in her own experience the drains were inadequate to the task.

I posted another message in the same vein as follows

Charles Clover makes a similar point to my earlier post about the problem of drainage and how  new estates are more than likely to be built on flood plains.  It is of course more dificult to use simple drainage schemes to protect property on a flood plain, but not impossible.  The trick is to identify possible escape routes for the water and then not block them as well.  Defensive barriers in the long run will prove ineffective and prohibitively expensive.

Unfortunately, so far there is no evidence that public bodies are taking any notice of these solutions, either through planning regulations or the application of ordinary common sense.