While customers are sympathetic to businesses affected by the floods, they can’t always wait for normal service to be resumed. When they start buying elsewhere, it can be hard to win them back. “If you can’t respond to their needs…

Three times Basharat Hussein tried to get into his flooded takeaway in Mytholmroyd. But the water was so high, it wasn’t until two days later that he could see the destruction. “It was horrific. You’d have thought a tsunami had…