The devastating floods that deluged Britain last summer were not caused by climate change, contrary to the claims of politicians and green campaigners, scientists have said.

A major new study says there is no evidence that the "exceptional river flooding" - which caused more than £3billion damage and left thousands homeless - was anything other than a freak "100- to 200-year" event.

And while temperatures have risen in England over the last few decades, there is no proof that flooding in the summer or winter is more common, the researchers added.

Last summer's floods were some of the worse in living memory. Thirteen people died and at least 48,000 homes were wrecked after torrential downpours hit Yorkshire, and Central England and the West of England in July.

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Power and water supplies were lost, eight motorways closed, and large parts of five counties and four cities were brought to a standstill after some areas got a month's rainfall in a day.

At the time, there were claims that the floods were the result of climate change - and a taster of the sort of floods that would become more common.

Last year, as Gordon Brown visited flood-damaged homes, he blamed the events on climate change.

"We're looking, if you like, at 21st-century extreme weather conditions," he said at the time.

According to the climate change models, Britain's winters will be wetter and its summers drier over the next 100 years. Extreme weather - such as storms and droughts - will become more common.

However, the new study by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford, Oxfordshire, suggests the Prime Minister was wrong.

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