Flood defence improvements for Stanhope
Public drop-in to be held on Monday 11 August at the Durham Dales Centre
People who live in Stanhope, County Durham, are being invited to come and talk to flood risk experts about a defence improvement scheme for the town.
The Environment Agency will be holding a public drop-in event on Monday 11 August at the Durham Dales Centre in Castle Gardens from 3pm to 7pm, giving local people the chance to find out more about the project.
The Environment Agency is proposing to raise some sections of its defences on the River Wear to improve flood protection to 100 homes that are at risk.
Chris Wotherspoon, project manager for the Environment Agency, said:
This work will improve flood defences in Stanhope to provide a more uniform standard of protection from the River Wear. There are defences along this part of the River Wear but these offer different standards of protection, so we are looking to raise some defences and improve their general condition.
Anyone who wants to know more about the scheme is invited to our public drop-in on the 11th. Our flood risk and project officers will be there to answer any questions.
The work will include the raising of an embankment at Butts Crescent, and increasing the height and strength of existing walls at Butts House and Wear Terrace.
No start date has yet been set for the work, but it is expected to be carried out this financial year.
Some 21 properties were flooded in Stanhope in January 1995, when river levels rose following heavy rainfall. After this, the Environment Agency constructed new flood defences to improve protection, and these significantly limited the damage caused by a rainfall event in January of 2005, when the Wear reached higher levels at Stanhope than they did in 1995.
This year’s project, designed using new modelling data, will improve these defences even further. They will be able to withstand river levels even higher than those seen in the 2005 incident.