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Flood defences moved in for on-street trials
REVOLUTIONARY removable flood defences were moved into place in York yesterday ahead of trials to protect one of the city's neighbourhoods which has been repeatedly hit by rising waters.
Engineering work to install the technology began on Monday and hopes are high that testing of the barriers could start as early as the end of this month.
Inventor Paul Archer-Simms, who was born in York, has spent 500,000 of his own money to create the Aquabarrier defences, which have cost a total of 1.2m to develop.
Yesterday Mr Archer-Simms was in the city's Clementhorpe district, where the barriers are to be trialled, to show his invention to representatives from the Environment Agency and York Council, as well as local residents.
He said: "It is great news that the engineering work has now started and we are keen to begin the actual trials as soon as possible. It was the first chance we have had to show people what the defences will do actually on site.
"We are looking forward to building on all the efforts so far and hope the defences could be used to protect other areas of the city as well."
It emerged last month that a deal had been finalised with York Council to test the removable defences, bringing to a close negotiations spanning the last seven years.
The three-year pilot will take place in the River Street and Clementhorpe area, where 40 properties were flooded and another 50 buildings cut off by rising waters in 2000.
The technology has attracted interest around the world including disaster-hit communities as far afield as Poland, Greece and Louisiana in the United States.
The system will see a raised table installed at the end of Clementhorpe – similar to a speed bump but with gentler ramps – onto which the temporary interlocking barriers can be fixed if flooding is threatened.
The hollow plastic barriers have holes in them so they fill with water and increase stability during flooding. Once floods recede, the water simply drains out.
The Environment Agency has provided a 50,000 grant to help to pay for the trials.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Thursday 23 February 2012
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