Big clean-up begins after flooding causes misery for householders

7:48am Monday 8th September 2008

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HOMES in two North Yorkshire villages were flooded when two rivers burst their banks – while dozens of householders in Pickering had a very narrow escape.

At Kirkby Mills, near Kirkbymoorside, the River Dove burst its banks and flooded homes.

In Sinnington, the River Severn also flooded homes with homeowners wading through three feet of water, while at Normanby, near Kirkbymoorside, The Sun Inn was threatened with flooding.

Torrential rain on the North York Moors caused Pickering Beck to burst its banks, with floodwater coming within inches of residents’ doorsteps in the town.

The close call prompted renewed calls for Pickering to finally be given flood defences.

Among those affected was 91-year-old Topsy Clinch, who had little option but to watch and wait as the waters rose around her home in Beck Isle on Saturday.

She said: “The neighbours are very good and came to help me lift furniture up out of harms way. It is time the Environment Agency and the Government got their finger out to give Pickering the flood defences we need. We have been saying this since 1998 when the flooding started. It really is no joke when your home gets flooded.”

Howard Keal, spokesman for Pickering flood defence group and Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Malton and Thirsk, said: “Pickering came within a hair’s breadth of flooding this time around. Let’s be absolutely clear, had the rain not stopped when it did we would have been facing another major disaster here.

“Pickering has flooded six times in nine years and this would have been number seven.”

The fire service in North Yorkshire attended more than 70 incidents in 24 hours, most of them related to flooding – three times busier than normal.

At 1.12am yesterday firefighters were called out to a 36-year-old woman in a car who had got trapped trying to cross a ford at Kirkdale, near Kirkbymoorside.

The woman managed to climb on to the roof of the car and called 999 from her mobile phone.

Three water rescue units from York, Whitby and Richmond, along with fire fighters from Kirkbymoorside attended the scene attaching lines across the ford to ensure the car and its occupant were not washed away by the swollen river. The woman was rescued uninjured.

The worst of the weather has passed with heavy rain replaced by showers, but flood warnings were still in place across the county yesterday, including ones for the River Ouse at York, the River Swale at Helperby, Kirby Wiske and Myton on Swale and the River Ure at Aldwark Bridge, Langthorpe and Roecliffe Caravan Park.

Vale of York MP and Shadow Floods Minister Anne McIntosh will visit Pickering today to see the impact of the weekend’s heavy rain.

Anger over raw sewage in road

Residents of the Leeman Road area of York again awoke to the smell of raw sewage, an angry councillor said today.

Holgate ward councillor Sonja Crisp said it was only just over a month since householders last woke to ankle deep raw sewage in the same place, the remains of which was in evidence for days.

She said: “Concerned residents rang me early on Saturday morning complaining of a bad smell and said that raw sewage had once again contaminated the back lanes next to Balfour Street play area.

“This simply isn’t good enough. Have these residents got to put up with this every time we have heavy rain?

“The council are very well aware of the flooding and drainage problems in this area and have been so for years before I was elected, yet they hide behind this survey which was sent out earlier in the year as a reason for not addressing this problem. Yorkshire Water told a resident early this morning they thought it was a pumping station problem.”

A spokesman for Yorkshire Water said: “We were not aware there was a problem on Saturday, but will undertake further investigations now it has been brought to our attention.”

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