A farmer who took matters into his own hands after he and his neighbours were repeatedly marooned and their lives put at risk as a river burst its banks has been commended for building his own flood defences.
While most flood defences involve years of planning, government agencies and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, John Flintoff’s 220-metre long, 8m wide and 2.5m high flood bank at Crakehill, near Thirsk, was built over nine months after he was offered 4,000 tonnes of soil.
But after creating the massive defences on farmland near the River Swale and Crakehill Beck, Mr Flintoff was told he had to get planning permission for the structure.
A meeting of Hambleton District Council’s planning committee heard the flood plain had a capacity of about 1.5 million cubic metres of water before the works and now could hold about 25,000 cubic metres less.
As a result, the meeting was told the Environment Agency had issued objections over the scheme.
Councillor Mike Barningham added: “Obviously if you prevent flood water going to one part it goes to somewhere else. We have to be careful it isn’t pushing the problem to somebody else’s doorstep.”
However, councillors told the meeting the hamlet, which has seen an increasing number of floods over the past three decades, was regularly one of the first places in the country to become inundated and said Mr Flintoff had acted to “protect life”.
Councillor John Noone noted how serious the issue had been for the farmer to have taken action himself, especially as it had involved a huge amount of work.
The authority’s portfolio holder for leisure, Councillor Bridget Fortune, said while she did not like anyone to build structures without planning permission, she had been extremely disappointed by the lack of support for the bank from the Environment Agency given the risk to lives.
She said: “I think the farmer must be commended because it obviously has been a very destructive force for quite some time.”
Mr Flintoff said while it had become increasingly difficult to run his pig and chicken farm due to regular flooding, he had also been concerned for the safety of his neighbours, Brian and Violet Coatsworth.
In 2012 the elderly couple had spent hours pumping water over a wall at the front of their home, when at 3am the wall collapsed and approximately 3ft of water washed through the house.
A report to the meeting stated Mr Coatsworth would have been killed if he was closer to the wall when it collapsed and that there had been 13 occasions since October last year when the residents would have been marooned if an amphibious vehicle had not been available.
Describing the incident in 2012, Mrs Coatsworth said: “We heard the River Swale rumbling, Brian was baling out water and then it came over the top of the wall like a tidal wave. Brian was clinging to a doorframe and I got swept from one end of the living room to the other. Another time Brian was crushed when the flood wall collapsed.”
After planning permission was granted for the bank, Mr Flintoff said: “Just running my business has been an absolute nightmare due to the flooding. Getting the feed for the animals in on time is near impossible. Even with the bank over the last few weeks we have had just three days when we could get feed in.”
Mr Flintoff said he had taken the action as he did not think government agencies would have done so.
He added: “It’s just a relief that we can start to live again.”
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