South Yorkshire floods one year on: calls to speed up prevention work
This weekend marks 12 months since hundreds were flooded
Last updated 6th Nov 2020
A year after hundreds were flooded out of their homes in South Yorkshire, there are calls to speed up efforts to stop it ever happening again.
This weekend marks the first anniversary of the River Don bursting its banks when a month's worth of rain fell in just 24 hours.
Around five hundred homes were flooded in Doncaster while dozens were also affected elsewhere in the county.
Pam Webb's spa business Truffle Lodge, and her home, in Fishlake were underwater:
"People who've lived in this village all their lives, to watch them being taken away on that night by search and rescue boats...it was just nothing short of heartbreaking.
"Until you've been impacted like we have in Fishlake, and so many other areas, you really don't appreciate how devastating it is. You don't have to live that near a river - we're not right on a river bank.
Ever since the floods there have been calls for more flood protection for areas of Doncaster like Fishlake and Bentley which were badly hit.
Some of those affected were flooded back in 2007 too, after which tens of million of pounds were spent on new defences in Sheffield.
Pam says that was at the expense of places like Fishlake further down the River Don:
"This should never have happened. There are so many reasons athat could have prevented it from happening."
"We've been very lucky that we got through the summer relatively dry but we haven't got the luxury of time - we need to get on and keep this schedule of work keeping to plan.
"People do worry and rightly so. What we don't want is a level of protection to be offered to Fishlake that then can impact on other neighbouring communities. My personal opinion will always be that safeguarding Sheffield and around the Meadowhall area did have an impact on Fishlake last year."
Work is underway to better protect areas hit during the South Yorkshire floods but for victims new defences can't come soon enough.
It comes as an independent review set up after last year's flooding in South Yorkshire has found insurers must do more to to help people get covered.
The report examined the barriers people faced in getting payouts after the deluge last November.
It's recommending giving renters more information about the insurance cover they've got and better guidance from councils.
Chair of the review Amanda Blanc says the findings were worrying:
"I was concerned to discover that although the majority of Doncaster residents had sensibly protected themselves with insurance, some of these policyholders had been sold cover which specifically excluded flood risk.
"In an area of such high flood concern like Doncaster, it was disappointing to find this essential insurance peril had been omitted for some.
“In addition, too many tenants found themselves with no insurance to help them recover from a catastrophic situation. This was particularly prevalent in places like Bentley where there is a large proportion of younger people on lower incomes living in rented accommodation."
Pam only found out she wasn't insured for flooding after her home and business in Fishlake were underwater - she says she wasn't alone:
"It was so apparent in the early days that there needed to be some kind of code of practice that all isurers needed to sign up to to give the same level of service and support to all customers irrespective of which insurer they choose."