Dredging 'no answer to Morpeth floods'

A garage boss whose business was badly affected by the deluge claims the devastation would not have been so serious if the Environment Agency had heeded local people's demands to lower the level of the riverbed.

But the Agency insists that dredging was not an option because it was not environmentally sustainable and would not have prevented the Morpeth flood in any event.

Tony Thompson is Managing Director of T. Thompson and Sons, whose garage business has operated in Morpeth for 46 years — the last 38 of them at Low Stanners.

But it is the first time that the garage has been flooded — it was 5ft deep in water when Mr Thompson began clearing up on the Sunday morning.

"This flood is totally disastrous and has affected our business very, very badly," said Mr Thompson. "Fortunately, we are trying to keep our customers as happy as we can by moving cars out to other businesses locally who are getting emergency repairs done for us. We are lucky to have some very good friends in the motor trade who are helping us out."

Mr Thompson expected that the business would be back up and running properly again by Monday of this week.

"The place was 5ft deep in water when I came in to begin clearing up on the Sunday," he said. "It was a total mess, with oil drums floating around.

"Fortunately, no customers' cars were damaged — we managed to get them up in the air and we also put expensive electrical diagnostic equipment which we use for MoT testing in a van and got that up on a lift to safety."

Mr Thompson, who paid tribute to his staff for their work in the clearing up operation, said: "We have been very lucky in many ways — it is just the inconvenience, plus the astronomical costs to the insurance companies.

"Personally, I believe the whole thing could have been prevented if the Environment Agency had got its finger out and acted upon suggestions people have put forward over the past couple of years about lowering the level of the river; this would have let the water away much more quickly and there would not have been any problems.

"Unfortunately this idea was pooh-poohed by the Agency which said there were some rare crayfish in the river.

"I hope the crayfish can pick up the millions of pounds in bills which will be paid out to the residents around here.

"We are a business and can get back on our feet very quickly, but residents are going to be out of their homes for months and months and months."

Environment Agency Flood Risk Manager David Clark said: "A lot of people have asked us why we did not dredge the river, but we did not do it because it is not environmentally sustainable. Whenever we dredge a river it simply fills back in again and dredging would not have prevented the amount of water which came down and resulted in the flooding at Morpeth."

Mr Clark confirmed that there were crayfish in the river and that they were protected by European legislation.