'Flood roadshow won't help us,' say residents

An advice roadshow has paid a visit to a Lincolnshire town recently hit by flooding – but some affected residents say it will do little to stop the problem happening again.

The Environment Agency's FloodMobile roadshow was in Boston on Wednesday in the wake of a flood in January last year caused by heavy rainfall.

But some residents said there had been little progress on implementing the recommendations made following an investigation into that flood, with campaigner Andy Robinson calling for the necessary infrastructure improvements to be made.

At the roadshow, the agency's Peter Reilly said: "There is always what we call residual risk, however well protected people are."

The flood affected 38 homes in Wyberton West Road and Park Road when water from South Forty Foot Drain breached the flood defence wall, which a Lincolnshire County Council report said was about a quarter of a metre too low.

A recommendation suggested raising the flood wall to the same level as the adjacent bank.

There were also recommendations for how people could improve the flood resilience of their homes.

But Robinson said that while those measures could help, they were costly and would not necessarily protect homes from the scale of flooding previously seen.

He claimed the only work done to the wall since the flood had been the resealing of its joints.

"I understand that these things take time and obviously they take money, but we really need to see the wheels moving quickly on this," he said.

Fellow resident Kelly Saunby said she had been woken up by the fire service banging on her door on the night of the flooding.

Saunby, who was looking after 12 dogs at the time as well as her own children, said it was "carnage", and she said her house insurance had not covered the flooding damage.

"I've had two years of this, and it is still stressful because nothing's changed or majorly been done about it since," she said.

"So when you have wet weather, you're looking at the river and wondering if it's going to happen again.

"Nothing really has changed. Nothing has been put in place to stop it."

Kane Arathoon, 21, recalled how the flooding happened so quickly.

He said his home insurance premiums had subsequently increased 10-fold to more than £77 a month.

Reilly, from the Environment Agency, said the biggest issue in Wyberton West Road was seepage through the bank.

He said the agency had carried out some remedial repairs and was planning to carry out further work, if it could secure national funding.

"If we are successful, we will raise that bank to design height if it's not at design height at the moment," he said.

But he added: "I will reiterate that whatever the level of that bank, there is always the risk of it being overtopped."

The agency said it had invested more than £200m in flood prevention schemes in Lincolnshire over the past decade and was prioritising funding for areas with the highest number of properties at risk.

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