THE devastating impact of flooding was only too clear to see across our region at the end of 2015.

The town of Tadcaster was torn in two when its central bridge partially collapsed under pressure from the swollen River Wharfe.

A sense of community spirit saw local residents through a difficult period of more than a year while the bridge was being rebuilt.

It reopened to great fanfare earlier this month and there will be further celebrations on Sunday, with a series of events.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, will bless the bridge and a party atmosphere is promised as the town celebrates being reunited and thanks all the volunteers and agencies involved in the post-floods clean-up.

A few miles away, the village of Stamford Bridge has been struggling for many years with flooding problems.

It was adversely affected by rising floodwaters from the River Derwent in 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2012, even before the storms of December 2015.

There will be great relief there that work is shortly due to start on providing permanent pumps for centre of the village.

Hopefully when the £75,000 pumping station is installed lessons will have been learned from York’s experiences with the Foss Barrier.

It is to be hoped that the engineers will ensure that, with the town having waited so long for permanent pumps, they are at the very least future-proofed to cope with flooding levels for many years to come.