Planned review to take place following an Environment Agency report into flooding in Horncastle
A number of homes were affected during storm Babet
Lincolnshire County Council has pledged to ‘double-check’ the findings of the Environment Agency’s report on the flooding in Horncastle caused by Storm Babet.
Despite the rollout of an £8.1 million Flood Alleviation Scheme in 2017, a total of 197 properties in Horncastle and 31 homes in Kirkby on Bain were affected after the county experienced two months’ worth of rain within just 24 hours in October 2023.
Following these events, the Environment Agency’s investigation revealed a two-and-a-half-hour delay in closing a sluice gate. Nevertheless, they maintained that even if the gate had been closed on time, the peak of the river would have been delayed by only about an hour.
The report, published in February, frustrated many residents of the market town who felt the agency was avoiding responsibility.
During a public meeting on Thursday, several residents accused the agency of having “marked its own homework.”
As a result, Lincolnshire County Council has agreed to commission a peer review to “double-check” the findings of the Environment Agency’s report as an external third party.
Matthew Harrison, Flood and Water Manager at LCC, said: “After Storm Babet brought severe flooding to Horncastle and the surrounding areas in October last year, the Environment Agency carried out an investigation into the operation of their flood storage reservoir scheme. We have now agreed to commission a peer review of this report – to ‘double-check’ the findings as an outside agency.
“This peer review will be completed separately, but alongside our own review into the flooding in Horncastle. Where the Environment Agency’s investigation only looked at their flood reservoir, our own ‘Section 19’ investigation will look at the flooding incident as a whole: what caused it, what made it worse, and what might help prevent a similar incident happening in the future.
“Both the peer review and our own Section 19 report will be available later this year.”
Shortly after the original report was published, Leigh Edlin, Area Director for Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire at the Environment Agency, stated that they cannot guarantee that the extent of flooding experienced in Horncastle after Storm Babet won’t happen again in the future.
He said: “No flood scheme can stop flooding; they can only reduce the risk of flooding. This flood scheme has been reducing flood risk to the people of Horncastle since it was constructed back in 2017.
“It was built in the right place and continues to reduce flood risk, but this event was exceptional in that it just exceeded the design of the reservoir, and unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that this won’t happen again.”