Broken promises (From Gazette & Herald)

Broken promises

EXASPERATED Pickering residents have said they cannot believe that their promised flood defence plans - which cost £700,000 to draw up - have now been shelved.

The Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee decided last week not to go ahead with a £6.7m project to protect properties from a further flooding. The Environment Agency's national review group said it could not recommend approval for the scheme because of environmental and economic concerns.

Town councillors decided at a meeting on Monday to write to the Environment Agency, Ryedale District Council and floods minister Elliot Morley to express their disappointment, and also to press for further attempts to be made to come up with acceptable proposals.

Ryedale District Councillor Di Keal, who is also a director of the National Flood Forum, yesterday met with John Greenway in London to discuss the problem, and plans to next week organise a public meeting in Pickering.

"We now want to set up a working residents group to continue pushing for a solution. We need more residents to get involved - people who are directly affected by floods," said Coun Keal.

"John Greenway is very supportive. Obviously, he doesn't want to see Pickering flooded again, and that will happen if something isn't done."

Many residents believe it is long-term regular maintenance that is needed in Pickering Beck to prevent flooding. Gordon Clitheroe, curator of the Beck Isle museum, said: "Between the 1960s and the early 1990s, the Yorkshire Ouse River Board took care of the beck and cleared it out regularly, and there was only one serious flood in that time - in 1979. Since they stopped doing, it there have been four in the space of six years.

"It doesn't take a genius to work out that the beck needs dredging and sluicing. More trees have grown, and there are blockages and they've built various bridges over it, which all adds to the problem.

"But the Environment Agency is convinced that we should have a one-off payment solution to the problem. We just have to grab this opportunity now, and push to get some kind of defence because we can't afford another flood."

Mr Clitheroe said over £30,000 has been spent raising floor levels in the museum and, in the most recent flood, of August 2002, the levels were so high that even with the improvements, the museum flooded. Mr Clitheroe is unable to get insurance for the museum. It had to close for three-and-a-half months during the peak season in 2002.

A total of 65 residential and commercial properties are at risk from flooding in Pickering, but district councillor Linda Cowling believes that a more sensible approach could have been taken by the Environment Agency to tackle the different individual needs of properties and thus not waste money. She said she thought the money had been "frittered away".

At her daughter's tea-shop in Pickering, which is more moderately affected by flooding, they have invested £300 in a submersible pump and erected a flood board over the front door of the shop.

"The Environment Agency could have looked at individual solutions for the properties which are badly affected," she said. "I can't believe it's cost them £700,000 just to draw up plans - they wouldn't be so frivolous if it was their own money."

Kathleen Graystone, of Bridge House Bed and Breakfast, said: "We all thought we only have to hang on another summer now and it will be done. We really all thought it would go ahead."

Coun Natalie Warriner said: "I feel that the Environment Agency has completely let Pickering down and should be taken to task about that."

Lyn Whaley, another Pickering resident, said: "We need the emergency measures because the emergency is going to return - we are going to get more floods."

Updated: 09:17 Wednesday, January 21, 2004