A couple who had to be rescued by boat from their home on Christmas Eve have called for an investigation into why part of Leatherhead flooded in last week’s storms.

Martin Starnes, 57, and wife Indira, 52, who live in Thorncroft Drive, will not be able to move back in for six months and were forced to spend Christmas with friends after the River Mole burst its banks on the morning of December 24.

The couple and their dog, Mishka, and five cats - Skat, New, Amelia, Kizzy and Little Thunder Bear - had to be rescued by the fire service in rafts and have been staying in a Premier Inn hotel in Chessington since Saturday.

A dramatic photograph of their rescue, taken by this newspaper, became the iconic image for the Leatherhead floods and today Mr Starnes spoke for the first time about their ordeal.

Although their house has not flooded again in further extreme weather in the past 48 hours, Mr Starnes said the couple, who have lived there for two-and-a-half years, are now worried that this could happen again within the next six months.

He said: "The emergency services were fantastic, absolutely brilliant.  I’ve been told they came from Ashford, Kent. 

"If we hadn’t had friends to stay with on Christmas Eve and the following three days where would we have gone?

"After staying with friends we were put in a hotel by the insurance company.    

"We’ve been told that it will take a minimum of six weeks for the house to dry out and that it will be six months before we’ll be back in the house.

"We are not staying in a hotel for six months.  We and the insurance company will have to look for somewhere that can put us up.

"That’s all assuming this doesn’t happen again.  We need people to start looking into why this happened. 

"Even in the flooding of 1968 my house did not flood.  The river comes up and goes down but it doesn’t do this.  It’s not normal.

"In 2012 we had rain day after day after day and the river and the fields flood but then the rain stops and it doesn’t flood homes. 

"The flood defences need to be looked at.  The elderly people who have lived here for years have never seen it like this.  Someone needs to be investigate."

Mr Starnes said four homes in his road have been affected by the flooding, as well as Thorncroft Manor, which houses offices.

He added: "The insurance companies haven’t been bad.  In general people have been pretty good in terms of getting information.

"But now, nine to 10 days after the event, we are still here with 50 black bags stuck on our patio. 

"It would be nice if things could move a bit more quickly, but many people are in the same situation.

"We have cleared a lot of stuff out of the house to save it.  We have lost a lot and saved a lot.  If it happened again in the next few days we don’t have an awful lot of stuff left in the house to lose.

"We have to get on with it.  We have to.  The real concern is this happening again in six months’ time when we’re back up and running again.  We need to start looking into it."