1,500 flooded families still out of their homes

07:00 - 25-August-2008

MORE than 1,500 East Yorkshire families are still being forced to live in temporary accommodation following the floods.

The latest figures showing the amount of people still displaced from their homes have been released two months after the Mail launched its Back Home campaign.

It is aimed at speeding up the return of flood-hit families back into their properties by highlighting their plight.

Some 1,144 households in Hull are still unable to move back into their homes, while a further 490 remain displaced in the East Riding.

Today is exactly 14 months since flooding devastated East Yorkshire on June 25 last year.

The latest figures, released to the Mail by East Riding Council and Hull City Council, reveal 223 families have moved back home in the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, other families have now resigned themselves to the fact they may see a second Christmas out of their homes.

Suzie Pallister and her family fear they might not get back into their flood-hit property in Hessle until the end of the year.

Suzie, 36, her children Thomas, 15, and Jessica, seven, and husband Andrew, 38, have seen three different building firms working on their home, but it is still only 75 per cent finished.

They have now employed a fourth builder, but the work cannot be started for another four weeks.

She said: "It's devastating to still be in this situation after all this time.

"Your sense of humour keeps you going. If you didn't laugh you would end up going mad and let it get on top of you."

Since the Mail launched its Back Home campaign on the first anniversary of the floods, 592 families have moved back into their homes.