The calls came mainly from the Eastern District, the town centre and Towcester. Several of the callers were given advice but in some cases officers had to travel out and help divert the waters.

Fire crews went out to properties in areas including Southfields, Goldings, Thorplands, Lumbertubs , Abington, Stoke Bruerne, Towcester and Syresham.

Crews had to make a hole in a wall to allow water to escape in Moorfield Square, Southfields, and they dug a trench to stop water in Arbour View Court, Thorplands.

Outside of Northampton officers helped open up the lock gates in Stoke Bruerne and helped stop water getting into a property in Towcester.

Crews also pumped water to safety in Syresham, and helped to mop up in Abington, Westone and Goldings.

Crews from Moulton, the Mounts, Mereway, Wellingborough and Brixworth were all involved in the operation.

Several roads also had to be closed down. Leo Plant, duty officer at MGWSP, the company in charge of maintaining the county's roads said the main problems were at Bedford Road in the town centre and Hardwick Road near Sywell, but that crews had been working across the county, handing out sandbags in Hartwell and Roade, and dealing with short-lived problems caused by the heavy rain.

He said: "Mostly we were dealing with temporary flooding because of the high volume of water. There were quite a few roads that became impassable but they quickly became passable."

Bedford Road was closed down at about 8pm Saturday night when it became waterlogged.

Mr Plant said: "We got a call at about 6.30pm saying water was starting to rise there. The reason was the Nene was really high so the water from the drains for the road were lower than the water level so the water couldn't get anywhere."

The drain covers for the road were temporarily removed and the road remained closed until about midday Sunday.

In Sywell, Hardwick Road was closed down from 9pm Saturday night well into Sunday.

Mr Plant said: "The ditches were completely flooded so the water couldn't go anywhere."

He added the Met Officer had failed to give adequate warnings about the volume of water that came down.

He said: "They didn't give us any warning until we were already inundated with calls. It I was checking the website as often as I could but there was no warning until after the event."

He added Northampton was the worst affected area simply because of the high volume of built-up areas.

"It is very tarmacked up - there is very little space for the water to go. But all in all it was quite a busy operation for quite a few hours but we kept on top of it."