THE owners of a historic York landmark which is being transformed into a luxury holiday home have criticised water bosses after the city's latest bout of flooding left them with a massive repair bill.

Sewage-ridden water from the swollen River Ouse poured into medieval Lendal Tower and the neighbouring upmarket apartments next door during last week's high water levels.

The subsequent mopping-up operation meant the renovation of the 700-year-old tower, which will be one of York's most exclusive addresses once it is complete, by the de Bretton hospitality group being put on hold.

The company blames Yorkshire Water for the problems, saying that even after it spent thousands of pounds last year on valves which would have staved off the flooding, it was money down the plughole - because nobody was able to shut them until it was too late.

Graham Mainwaring, de Bretton's group foreman, said it had become obvious the building needed protection after the damage caused by last January's floods, which led to the three valves being installed.

"They said this would never happen again, yet we were knee-deep in water," he said.

"Yorkshire Water hasn't kept its promise."

When the waters started rising last week, Chris Agar, of Ouse cruise operator YorkBoat, called Yorkshire Water, but said: "I spent about four hours trying to contact somebody and find out who was going to close these valves, but nobody knew anything about them.

"Finally, Yorkshire Water did come down, but by that time there was about a foot-and-a-half of water on the inside of the flood gate. They had to fumble around in the sewage and river water to try and close the valves."

Mr Agar said that eventually only two of the three valves could be closed.

He said: "It was a farce - they had all this work done, but nobody knew about it."

The flooding problems meant there was no access to the apartments next to the tower for three days, and de Bretton's general hospitality manager Shane Winship said: "When you take into account lost revenue from the apartments, the delays to the tower development and the expense of the clean-up, this is a substantial cost for us."

A Yorkshire Water spokesman said: "We are concerned to hear residents' accounts and the company is investigating exactly what happened in an effort to establish if there were any issues with usual procedure.

"If so, customers who were affected will be given an explanation, both about the incident and what we plan to do to ensure there is no repeat.

"However, we would like to assure York residents that the company takes sewage flooding seriously and, between 2005 and 2010, will have spent £35 million tackling most areas at risk."