A ROW has blown up after a parish council - whose vice-chair is York council leader Keith Aspden - was accused of blocking flood defences which would protect a key York road.

Labour councillor Kallum Taylor said a condition of the Germany Beck housing development at Fulford was for house builders Persimmon to pay for the construction of a wall along the A19 to ensure flooding didn’t block the road.

However, he claimed this required Fulford Parish Council to agree to release about 50 metres of land, and repeated efforts to secure an agreement with the parish had failed, which was now costing City of York Council thousands of pounds in sandbagging efforts to try and stem the water.

“Residents in the area are up in arms at the inability of the council and parish council to reach an agreement, which is astonishing given York Council’s leader actually sits on the parish council,” he said.

But the parish responded by saying it was “hugely disappointing that such a misleading and inaccurate press release has been sent out by Cllr Taylor, without any prior contact with the parish council on such an important issue”.

It said: “The accusations levelled against the parish council are wholly unfounded regarding its position on flood defences in Fulford. At no point has the parish council ‘ignored flood risk’ or ‘blocked’ additional defences on its land and nor has it ever stated that any flood wall is ‘unnecessary’.

“On the contrary, the parish council has pointed out at various stages of the planning process that additional flood defence measures were required at the A19 and it continues to examine schemes to resolve the flooding issues in the village.”

Cllr Aspden said: “What is most important here is to ensure flood protection for the wider community, including the A19, Fordlands Road and Fordlands Crescent. A flood defence scheme developed in isolation, for example, just to protect the A19, would not then protect the Fordlands Road and Fordlands Crescent area, a community of over 300 houses.

“Having secured nearly £600,000 from the council following a successful local campaign with local residents and the parish council, it is now time to challenge partners to develop that joined up flood plan, including, for example, a new pumping station.”

York’s flood risk manager Steve Wragg said consultation was about to start on the second phase of flood resilience measures associated with Germany Beck which would prevent Ouse floodwater overwhelming the beck and flooding Fordlands Road. He said a pumping station would ensure flows in Germany Beck could be drained to the Ouse when it was in flood.

“This second phase of improving the area’s flood defences will involve local residents, the Parish Council, the internal drainage board and the Environment Agency.”