South Milford Chair Richard Coy and NYCC Councillor Bob Packham met with NYCC Drainage, Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency on Monday 2 June 2014 to raise yet again the issue of flooding.
Whether scientific or not this seems to happen every 7 years and the Parish Council understands that the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water are no closer to agreeing who is responsible for the culverted section of the beck as it runs under High St (apparently a very unique and legal grey area).
At the meeting it was confirmed that NYCC have finally received approved funding to undertake a full strategic summary of South Milford and the surrounding area to review the liability of this section, the existing infrastructure (including the highways balancing ponds) and possible measures to prevent floods happening again.
It was understood that commissioning of this review has been delayed due to lack of personnel resources at NYCC but the Environment Agency undertook to provide support.
Unfortunately for some local residents, only 2 days later on Wednesday 5 June the build up of water at the entrance to the culvert at the junction of Hight Street and Wain Gap grew so large that the floods once again occurred. Although a number of houses may have been protected by the flood remediation work undertaken over the last few years, a number were damaged and the Village Post Office is temporarily closed for repair. There were around a five or six fire engines in attendance and water was pumped from the beck behind the Doctor's surgery on High Street to land behind the Swan pub.
Many local residents continue to believe that the only solution to this regularly occuring issue is to either introduce storage tanks for exceptional quantities of water and/or increasing the capacity of the the culvert under High Street. We wait with interest the review commissioned by NYCC.
Whether scientific or not this seems to happen every 7 years and the Parish Council understands that the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water are no closer to agreeing who is responsible for the culverted section of the beck as it runs under High St (apparently a very unique and legal grey area).
At the meeting it was confirmed that NYCC have finally received approved funding to undertake a full strategic summary of South Milford and the surrounding area to review the liability of this section, the existing infrastructure (including the highways balancing ponds) and possible measures to prevent floods happening again.
It was understood that commissioning of this review has been delayed due to lack of personnel resources at NYCC but the Environment Agency undertook to provide support.
Unfortunately for some local residents, only 2 days later on Wednesday 5 June the build up of water at the entrance to the culvert at the junction of Hight Street and Wain Gap grew so large that the floods once again occurred. Although a number of houses may have been protected by the flood remediation work undertaken over the last few years, a number were damaged and the Village Post Office is temporarily closed for repair. There were around a five or six fire engines in attendance and water was pumped from the beck behind the Doctor's surgery on High Street to land behind the Swan pub.
Many local residents continue to believe that the only solution to this regularly occuring issue is to either introduce storage tanks for exceptional quantities of water and/or increasing the capacity of the the culvert under High Street. We wait with interest the review commissioned by NYCC.