Leaders of councils across northern England have called for “massive” increases in funding to deal with major incidents, as the Guardian learned that around 1,800 homes and businesses have been badly flooded in the region.

Dozens of weather warnings remain in place around the country, from Oxfordshire to Yorkshire and across the West Midlands, where more than 100 schools were forced to close on Thursday.

The mayor of the Sheffield city region, Dan Jarvis, described the flood-stricken village of Fishlake, near Doncaster, as having “the feel of a disaster movie”.

As flood-affected families braced for further downpours, the leaders of six councils demanded immediate and long-term financial support to recover from the devastation.

The leaders of councils in Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield, Barnsley, Bassetlaw and Kirklees warned of “considerable and lasting damage on a wide scale”, including to power plants and transport infrastructure, and called for funding increases to help them cope with future floods.

In the absence of detailed official figures, the Guardian contacted local authorities in all flood-affected areas and found that at least 1,758 properties had been flooded across Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

The figure is more than double the official Environment Agency estimate of 830 properties flooded.

England is facing water supply shortages by 2050 unless rapid action is taken to curb water use and wastage, the Environment Agency has warned.

Its new report says enough water to meet the needs of 20 million people is lost through leakage every day.

Population growth and the impact of climate change are expected to add to supply pressures.

The agency wants people to have a personal water target and has urged them to use water more wisely at home.

The study, the first major report on water resources in England, says that population growth and climate change are the biggest pressures on a system that is already struggling.

For the first time in its history, the Environment Agency has assessed the state of all of its flood defences in England following the winter’s storms.

One thousand sites were identified as in need of repair, with the unprecedented series of storms causing £135m worth of damage.

Agency staff and members of the armed forces took six weeks to inspect more than 150,000 sites across the country.

To date, 350 defences have been repaired, the Agency said.

Over the winter, a series of powerful storms swept across the UK, resulting in coastal areas being battered by high waves and storm surges.

The Met Office said it was England’s wettest winter on record, leaving saturated river systems struggling to cope with the deluge.

“We closed the Thames Barrier 50 times between December and the middle of March,” explained Environment Agency director of strategy and investment Pete Fox.

“That is a quarter of all the times the barrier has been closed since it came into operation in 1983. That gives you a sense of how unprecedented the winter was.

A number of stakeholders strongly support the retention of two separate bodies, and some were firmly against the idea of a single merged body. Interestingly, an unnamed environmental NGO launched an email and letter writing campaign which encouraged 180 people to respond to the discussion paper. Interestingly, the summary document is intended to reflect the evidence received and not Government Policy or the work of the Challenge Group. Watch this space.

Nine separate government bodies, including Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Rural Payments Agency, made at least 114,000 visits to English farms during 2011 and 2012, costing £47 million, reports Farmers Weekly.

Some 84% of farmers responding to the NAO survey believed oversight bodies should coordinate their activity more. Whilst farm inspections provide assurance that farmers comply with regulations and prevent animal disease and environmental pollution. They are also needed to check that farmers comply with common agricultural policy (CAP) so that they can receive payments from the European Union. The NAO report makes a series of recommendations around avoiding the duplication of effort, need for coordination and information sharing and ensuring cost effectiveness.

The report – ‘streamlining farm oversight’ – can be found here.