Residents are being kept up to date with the latest flood threat by a friendly neighbour.

David Harris has been posting regular updates outside Patcham Post Office in Old London Road to give residents the latest information.

Areas of Patcham can suffer from groundwater rising into basements.

And the 77-year-old lifelong Patcham resident has measured that the groundwater is currently rising at nine inches a day and if this rate continued the local area would flood at 8.01am on February 18.

Mr Harris is quick to clarify this is purely hypothetical and unlikely to happen in reality.

He also pointed out that groundwater rose much higher a year ago.

On January 6, 2013 the water levels were 1.84 meters below the surface compared to 2.27m below at the moment.

He added: “I am perturbed by the amount of rainfall we are predicted, Monday and Tuesday we are going to have rainfall coming through.

“Things are much better than they were in 2000 and if the elements do what they do then you can't really do anything about it, we have mitigated the damage as best we could.

“The Environment Agency, Southern Water and the council's civil contingencies manager deserve a lot of praise.”