ACADEMICS are calling for flood-hit families to share their memories of the July 2007 floods as Government advisors warn new homes are still being built on flood plains.

The Committee on Climate Change found Tewkesbury, one of nine local authorities examined, had seen development in at-risk areas increase over the past 10 years. It came as the body insisted the country was "nearing its limits" in its ability to cope with greater weather extremes like the disaster four years ago.

"The UK's vulnerability to climate change is potentially increasing as a result of patterns of building development in some areas," the committee chair Lord John Krebs warned.

"The UK is coping now, but it is near its limits in some key sectors and could be pushed over the edge by climate change. The results in this report demonstrate how a sharper focus on the UK's current vulnerability to climate can improve the way we prepare for climate change."

The 2007 floods cost local authorities in Gloucestershire millions of pounds.

Tewkesbury borough councillor Mike Sztymiak, who led a group to London in 2008 to hand in a petition calling for no more development on the flood plain, said the potential impact of new builds on flooding in the area was one of his biggest concerns.

He said: "There is housing development taking place and there's a likelihood developers will have options on land around Tewkesbury. Any of these will have a direct impact on the town. If you start to cover fields with concrete then the water has to go somewhere."

He is concerned by some inclusions in the authority's Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment, which earmarks land for development.

"There are parts towards the Wheatpieces area that I would say are in a flood plain," he said. "My definition may differ to the Environment Agency but people living in Tewkesbury know the areas which flood."

Meanwhile, a project at the University of Gloucestershire is looking to document people's recollections of the 2007 disaster. The Sustainable Flood Memories project will investigate how local knowledge and memories of flooding can help people to cope with future flooding.

Research Assistant Dr Franz Krause is keen to see photographs or videos taken by Tewkesbury residents or talk to them about their experiences.

He said: "I am interested in what people find most memorable about past floods, and what they prefer to forget now that they are four years past

"I would also like to find out what inhabitants of the floodplain have learned by coping with past floods, and what role this knowledge can play in formal flood risk management."