8/4/2008

HUNDREDS of homes in York may not get better protection from flooding after all, a leading councillor warned today.

The Environment Agency said last month that a £2 million upgrade of defences in the Leeman Road area was set to go ahead.

Area manager Craig McGarvey said that design work on the project, which would involve raising and strengthening flood embankments alongside the River Ouse, was scheduled to start in 2009/10 with completion by 2012.

The embankments protected many hundreds of properties in the area when the River Ouse burst its banks in November 2000, but the banks came perilously close to being overtopped, and volunteers joined emergency services in sandbagging the tops of the banks to strengthen the defences.

The agency concluded three years ago that the defences needed boosting as flooding problems were set to worsen on the Ouse during the 21st century, but funding shortages have delayed the work.

Now Coun Andrew Waller, City of York Council's representative on the Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee, has revealed the project may still not make it into the capital programme.

He said the programme for £24.1 million of spending in 2008/9 would be set at a committee meeting on Thursday, and Leeman Road was not included.

He said: "There is a possibility that the Leeman Road scheme could be included in 2009/10, but they would need to be sure that they had the £1.7 million or so capital funding in 2010/11 or 2011/12 to follow through with the work. However, the total estimates of what the region needs over the next three years is £190 million and the Government is indicating that it will provide £154 million.

"For a scheme that is at the margins of the points scoring system, it is critical for the Leeman Road scheme that this funding gap is narrowed. Clearly this is disappointing, and as a former Leeman Road resident who saw how close the 2000 floods came to overtopping the defences I will not stop fighting for the rebuilding work."

He said the agency had told him that current funding levels meant construction was not likely to progress until 2011/12 at the earliest. The agency told him: "Money has been provisionally allocated in 09/10 for detailed appraisal and design."

It said during periods of high river level, standing water had been observed on the "dry" side of the embankments, and investigations into the "stability and seepage characteristics" of the embankments had been commissioned.