More than 6,000 homes in Wakefield district permanently 'at risk of flooding' from heavy rainfall

Surface water flooding, where drains are unable to cope with biblical downpours, now poses a bigger threat to the area than rising river levels, according to the man tasked with addressing the problem locally.

Paul Maddison, flood risk manager at Wakefield Council, told a meeting on Wednesday that some parts of the district's drainage system could be easily overwhelmed by heavy rain.

It follows the devastating impact of Storm Ciara on residents and businesses in Horbury Bridge earlier this month, where some homes were swamped with water.

In a presentation to town and parish council representatives, Mr Maddison said: "In Wakefield, we've got potentially 6,600 properties at risk of surface water flooding if rain falls quickly.

"River flooding is obviously a big issue, but in Wakefield there's not the same scale of risk from that as in Hebden Bridge, Todmorden or Tadcaster.

"I see our biggest risk as being from surface water, because the water goes down the gullies, into the sewerage system and the storms we've had recently are much bigger than what the system can cope with."

He added: "There's a lot of pipe work under the ground that's not in very good condition, and if part of that collapses then people will be flooded."

Mr Maddison said that Wakefield had been "lucky" to avoid flooding on a larger scale after Storms Ciara and Dennis, compared to other parts of the country.

But he added that more properties could have been hit were it not for defences put in place around the south of the city after the mammoth 2007 floods, which affected 1,800 homes.

Around £1.75m worth of work was done after that disaster 13 years ago.

He said: "I think hundreds of homes would have been flooded over the last two or three years if we hadn't had those schemes in place."

The council says it works with landowners and partners including Yorkshire Water, who are responsible for underground drainage systems, to try to reduce the risk of flooding.

But Mr Maddison said members of the public could also help inform the council too about vulnerable areas.

He added: "There may be areas that are at risk and we don't know about them.

"In an ideal world, I'd like my team out and about taking pictures all the time because that's how we'd get our information, but we don't have that resource.

"I'm happy for someone to say, "There's a problem here, you've not been out in a while," because that's how we find things out."

Rain is forecast for Wakefield for Thursday and Friday, before a drier day on Saturday gives way to heavy rain on Sunday morning.

Local Democracy Reporting Service