Anyone 'welcome to challenge flood report findings' say Environment Agency

​After ​Victoria Atkins, Louth & Horncastle MP, hosted a Flood Forum in March to answer questions from residents following the Environment Agency’s report into devastating flooding in Horncastle and surrounding villages caused by Storm Babet in October 2023, Horncastle Town Council called a follow-on meeting held last night (Thursday) to discuss the next step.

Attending the meeting were representatives from the Environment Agency, Witham Third drainage board, East Lindsey District Council, and Lincolnshire County Council, with more than 90 people attending at the meeting at the Stanhope Hall.

The Environment Agency’s report into the flooding stated that it was caused by “extreme” rainfall, not the delay closing the sluice gate in Horncastle’s £8million Flood Alleviation Scheme (FAS) due to a fault – which it was reiterated had now been fixed as it was also discovered that the system had two override switches instead of one, which has now been corrected.

During Thursday’s meeting, Phil Reilly, the EA’s operations manager, hosted a presentation to explain the sheer volume of rain caused the flooding, and reiterated that the flooding would have occured whether the gate had opened properly or not as the incident was a 1 in 1,000 occurance.

Chairing the meeting, Mayor Matt Wilkinson, challenged the EA to “categorically say this flooding will never happen again”, to which Mr Reilly said that we need to be “realistic, as things do break down but we’ve made changes and improved the alarm handling so if it [the FAS] did fail, it would give staff time to get to the site”.

During the meeting, the findings of the report were challenges, as the EA had previously been accused by Victoria Atkins of “marking its own homework”, but Environment Agency area director Leigh Edlin said that the evidence in the report was looked at by an independent consultant to see if the EA would be liable for compensation and it was understood that the body was not.

A number of people in the meeting challenged the EA on the findings, including Mr Michael Milnes from Kirkby on Bain, who said that his house was flooded with half a metre of water, 55cm, inside his house and many of his treasured, personal possessions were destroyed.

"I do not believe that the EA’s closure of the flood gate would have resulted with the same level of flooding one hour later.

"Had the sluice gate been closed soon after the catchment engineer emailed at 7.17am, flooding would have been greatly reduced – therefore I hold the EA responsible for my uninsured losses.”

Mr Milnes then called on everyone in the room to donate £100 each to generate enough funds to take the EA to task at a higher legal level.

Mr Edlin said that anyone who feels they have evidence that the EA is liable for damages caused by the flooding are “welcome to take on that claim”.

The possibility of having a similar FAS on the River Wareing was also inquired after again, and Mr Edlin said that the idea for an FAS there was mooted ten years ago but was not thought to be “financially viable”, but said that while this would be revisited to see if it would be possible, that people need to “manage their expectations”.

Matt Wilkinson closed the meeting by reassuring those present that there was a Section 19 investigation into the report by Lincolnshire County Council ongoing, the findings of which were expected in August, and that the possible FAS for the Wareing would be reviewed.