Council to investigate flooding

9:21am Saturday 17th November 2007

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STUDIES will be undertaken to find out why a Skipton business is occasionally submerged under floodwater from a local beck.

Director of Craven District Council's community services Jonathan Kerr told Adrian Green that investigations would be carried out to get to the bottom of why his salvage yard suffered from flooding.

Speaking at a residents' liaison meeting about the Homeloan Management development, Mr Green said the firm's proposed new building, off Gargrave Road, would put extra pressure on Ings Beck, which ran close to his business on Ings Lane. Mr Green said he and his father had been trying to tell the authorities for years about flooding from the stream, but their concerns had fallen on deaf ears.

He said when the bypass was built 25 years ago the course of Ings Beck had been lifted by seven feet and this had created a dam. In times of heavy rainfall the water spilled into his property, bringing sewage from the nearby mains with it.

Mr Kerr said the council had been consulting with the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water and its own environmental health team had been to look at Green's.

He said: "What we are looking at is trying to commission a study to look at how flooding occurs at Green's and what makes it worse."

Mr Kerr said he did not know what powers the council had in terms of the beck, but investigations would be made into remedial measures.

But Mr Green said "experts" such as the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water had continuously been wrong and he lived in fear of his phone ringing in the early hours as it invariably meant his business was flooded.

Mr Green said: "It happens two or three times a year and I have to go and rescue what I can from the premises and wade through sewage while I do it. But the experts' say it happens once in every 100 years."

Residents at the meeting were given an update on the application by HML, which is to relocate its town centre offices to Gargrave Road.

Planning officer Helen Signol said the company had been given planning permission in February, but this permission had not yet been finalised as it was subject to a section 106 agreement.

Mrs Signol said Skipton Building Society, which owns HML, was not in a position to sign this agreement as it was not yet an "interested party" in the site.

Mr Kerr said negotiations between the council and Skipton Building Society for the sale of the land were at a very final stage. He would not reveal the price of the site but said the deal was likely to be completed in the next two weeks.