The sun shone down upon the sinking waters of the River Ouse as Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, Lord Crathorne, inspected York's flood defences with the intention of making a full report to the Queen.

The Queen's representative was accompanied by Roy Templeman, City of York Council's director of environment and development services, Bill Woolley, the council's assistant director for planning and transport, and leader of the council, Councillor Rod Hills.

They surveyed the now redundant line of sandbags on top of the flood defences in North Street, which, only days before, had been the scene of intense Army activity as the waters rose threateningly to within inches of the top of the flood wall.

Lord Crathorne viewed the barrier as he announced the visit of a 'top level' royal in the near future.

Having just been to see the staff at Silver Control, at York Police Station, and look at aerial pictures of the floods, Lord Crathorne said: "I have been in almost daily contact with the palaces about the floods here and they are tremendously concerned. But equally I haven't wanted to come up while the work was going on because I didn't want to get in the way of everyone's important efforts.

"I'm sure there will be a royal visit of a senior royal as they have been very, very concerned about it all.

"On Monday I will be reporting back to the heads of the Queen's office and Prince Charles' office and the Duke of York's office.

"It's clearly been quite wonderful the way all the professional agencies have worked together and how the public have responded with the wonderful spirit people have in this country when there is a crisis.

"I am also impressed at how effective the flood barriers that were put in ten years ago have proved to be. Having seen the video of the whole area, I have seen that although there have been 300 homes evacuated it could well have been 3000.

"Things could have been very much worse."