By Julian Whittle

Last updated at 14:05, Monday, 29 March 2010
 

The Environment Agency is to spend £5m on Keswick’s flood defences to reduce the risk of a repeat of the disastrous floods which hit last November.

It will also begin a review of flood defences in Cockermouth next month, with a view to making improvements, and is in the “early stages” of a flood-risk assessment for Workington.

A study for Keswick is complete and funding for improved defences has been confirmed.

Design work should start later this year with construction beginning in summer 2011 subject to financial, technical and environmental approvals.

Marianne Webb, a spokeswoman for the Environment Agency, said: “The options for exactly what will be built and the level of protection provided have yet to be decided. It is in the very early stages but it is progressing.”

Keswick’s existing defences were built along the River Greta in 1988.

Even with these in place, the Environment Agency says there is a two per cent chance of flooding each year.

The defences were overwhelmed in 2005 when 140 properties flooded.

Since then, £80,000 has been spent on draw-down sluices in High Hill embankment and minor improvements to Crosthwaite Road embankment

Work is underway to strengthen and repair High Hill wall after it was breached last November.

The announcement of £5m for new defences follows a pledge from Floods Minister Rosie Winterton.

She said this week: “The Environment Agency and others have been working very closely to see what needs to be done in terms of flood prevention, to ensure a proper programme is put together.

“We will do as much as we reasonably can to prevent damage in the future.”

Cockermouth has flooded in 2005 and 2008 as well as November 2009.

In 2005, 113 properties flooded with water depths in Main Street of up to 2ft 11in.

In 2008, flood defences were overtopped in Waterloo Street when 45 properties flooded. But those events were dwarfed by the 2009 floods, which submerged Main Street, damaged bridges and affected more than 750 properties.

Cockermouth’s flood defences were built in 1999 at a cost of £600,000.

They were designed to reduce the flood risk to one per cent in any one year.

Since then defences on Waterloo Street, near where the River Derwent and River Cocker meet, have been improved at a cost of £100,000.

First published at 11:29, Monday, 29 March 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk