Mayor attacks ‘crazy’ waste of £1m flood defence work

The agency says it is legally obliged to strengthen a reservoir in Market Weighton that would protect the town in a one in 10,000-year flooding event.

But Mayor Peter Hemmerman said such an event would be so catastrophic the defences would make no difference, and claimed the money would be better spent on small-scale flood defences to provide more frequent protection.

He said: “The area that runs into the old football field has been classed as a reservoir and there is an embankment there which acts as a dam.

“The Environment Agency wants to put a concrete slipway on top of the embankment to take water away if the event ever happens, and the embankment would let the water escape slowly.

“But if that event ever happened most of England would be under water anyway – it’s a pointless exercise and I think hard to justify to spend a lot of money like that in a time of cuts.

“We have flooding anyway and they could spend the money to alleviate that, but they won’t do it. It’s crazy, a waste of money.”

Coun Hemmerman claims the work would “devastate” a nature area and said a public consultation exercise to clarify aspects of the scheme was also pointless.

The agency is due to hold its latest consultation event at Market Weighton Community Hall, in Station Road, on Monday, from 3pm to 7pm.

“They had 25 different options and came back to the one they started with,” the Mayor said. “It’s a waste of time because they don’t take any notice of what you say.”

The site, called Mill Beck Reservoir, is registered under the Reservoirs Act because it is capable of holding more than 25,000 cubic metres of water. The agency said the money could only be used on the reservoir project.

A spokeswoman said: “We are responsible for the reservoir in Market Weighton and it’s been inspected by an engineer and the survey is specific that there’s particular work we need to carry out. It’s our legal duty to carry out that work. We are holding a public drop-in event to let people know what it’s about. In some form it will have to go ahead in the next financial year.”