WORK on Malton and Norton's front-line flood defences has been put on hold - because they're currently under water!

Engineers have been unable to continue their work, despite an end-of-November deadline, following the weekend's unexpected heavy downpour.

Although no homes are under threat, water levels are described as being "seriously high" - and there are no signs of it dropping.

The ironic situation has forced engineers working on Mill Beck pumping station to pack up tools and patiently wait for water levels to drop in the culvert by at least 500 mm.

Ryedale Council property manager David Summers said the situation was especially frustrating as the rain had not been previously forecast.

"Although flood warnings issued over the weekend had since been withdrawn, water levels are simply not going down," he said

"The river is not yet at a dangerously high level but needless to say we are keeping a close eye on the situation.

"At the moment we're looking at long term weather forecasts in the hope we'll complete by the deadline.

"It is, as you can imagine, a situation which none of the agencies want to be in."

The £300,000 project should have been completed by early Autumn but was put on hold until September following lengthy negotiations with Transco and Railtrack. The pumping station, designed to protect properties in the Welham Road area, is part of a £6.3m flood defence system funded by the Environment Agency.

Also working to a November deadline, a spokesperson said engineers were currently working as hard as they could despite the current situation to get the projects back on schedule.

"Because of the high water levels work has been affected," she said.

"We're working very hard to find ways of continuing our work but it's unlikely the defences will be watertight by the end of November, even though most are in place."

Updated: 16:15 Wednesday, November 20, 2002