HAMBLETON District Council is responsible for economic development, and the residents of Brompton and Water End are part of this economic development – and as responsible homeowners, new and old, are already contributing to economic growth through the upkeep of their homes, interior and exterior, by engaging skilled workers and making use of local businesses.

Thus we are helping with employment in and around Northallerton, helping with economic development.

Brompton Flood Prevention Group has been advocating for the past few years flood defences to lessen the risk of flooding. The Environmental Agency has on record for Water End that 169 properties at risk.

We do play an important part in Northallerton’s growth, but the feeling is that we are being dismissed as insignificant.

Although floodwater has held up businesses on the Dalton Industrial Estate, it’s great that the bosses can at least return home to dry homes – unlike Brompton and Water End.

B Bragg, Brompton

 

FOLLOWING your article concerning flood defences in Brompton, near Northallerton, headlined “Council’s flooding defence proposals under fire’’ (D&S Times, Jan 1), I didn’t expect anything other than waffle from either Hambleton District Council or the Environment Agency.

I was pleased to see that Pickering’s natural flood defences have proved successful in withstanding the deluge of early January. As Brompton Flood Prevention Group has been let down with the promised reservoir, it has tried to emulate Pickering and has been campaigning for funding for natural flood defences.

It is extremely difficult to get farmers to come on board, especially when we have about 24 farms owning the tributaries around Brompton, and we would like to see incentives given by the Government to help us build leaky dams, offline ponds etc.

At present, we have permission to build three leaky dams in a tributary of Brompton Beck, but not until July.

Pickering had 167 dams as well as a small reservoir and was using forestry land and so didn’t need farmers’ permission, so we have a long way to go to have a substantial effect.

We have been given permission to carry out some more land surveys, but we are paying a surveyor and when the leaky dams are built, we will have to pay a contractor. Just getting permission from the internal drainage board is a lengthy business, but we have that too.

Our group will not stop until we achieve our aim to get flood defences for Brompton.

If we flood, then the new development being built downstream in Northallerton will also flood.

If we had flood defences, this would help other villages downstream of us – and Northallerton.

Nobody cares about flooding until they are actually flooded, but surely it is better to prevent flooding in the first place. I was astonished that when I organised sand bags for Water End, Brompton, on Boxing Day, that there was only one truck available for the whole of Hambleton.

We sympathise and empathise with the people of York, Cumbria, Lancashire and anyone else who has recently flooded, but we were close on Boxing Day – so close that my brother, one of many family members at my home, sat by the window transfixed, saying: “It’s coming closer!”

Sue Butler, Chair of Brompton Flood Prevention Group, Brompton, near Northallerton