Maintaining Wakefield flood defences an 'ongoing problem' because of lack of funding

Paul Maddison, flood risk manager at Wakefield Council, said keeping structures in a good state of repair was "as important" as building new defences, but that obtaining money for it was difficult.

It follows a report by The Guardian this weekend, which suggested more than 3,400 of England's flood defences were "almost useless" because of their age and defects.

Public spaces in Horbury Bridge and Castleford were hit by excessive rainfall last week, though the impact was not nearly as bad as the devastation caused by storms which flooded dozens of properties last February.

Months later, Wakefield Council announced a £6m investment in new flood defences.

The scale of that job is similar to the work which was done in Agbrigg, after around 1,800 homes there were washed out in 2007.

Speaking at an environmental scrutiny meeting on Monday, Mr Maddison said getting cash to fund maintenance was an issue many councils had repeatedly raised.

"It's an ongoing problem," he said. "We do have a small budget for it.

"At Agbrigg, we do go back because floodwater tends to have a habit of finding nooks and crannies (in the structures) where it can cause damage.

"Maintenance money for existing schemes is a problem and this is raised quite a lot, because the Environment Agency do have capacity to target funding towards maintenance, but that's quite hard."

Mr Maddison said that the council cleans out grilles on a monthly basis and also maintains around 40 ponds across the district, where excess water can be diverted.

He added: "In some ways maintenance is as important as building large schemes, because without it it can cause severe flooding."

Last February, Mr Maddison said that around 6,600 homes across the district were permanently at risk of flooding.

On that occasion, he said that surface water flooding posed a bigger threat to Wakefield than river flooding, because local sewerage systems have difficulty coping with extreme rainfall.

Local Democracy Reporting Service