18-02-2025
'They still have nightmares and flashbacks - it's with you for life'
After 10 years of waiting in fear that their homes will be flooded again, traumatised residents have taken matters into their own hands.
Dozens of homes have been flooded in Riverside Drive in Prestolee over the last decade, including 39 properties which were damaged in the Boxing Day floods of 2015. Five years later, a further 22 houses were flooded on the street near the banks of the River Irwell.
Last year, residents were told that new flood defences worth more than £30m that had been planned would no longer be built due to a funding gap.
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Fed up of living in fear, residents have raised more than £5,000 for their own temporary flood defences - and over the last three weeks, they have come together to install them.
Farnworth and Kearsley First councillor Tracey Wilkinson has told the Manchester Evening News that the community spirit has been 'unbelievable' - but she believes it shouldn't be this way.
She said: "The kids still have nightmares and flashbacks. It's with you for life.
"I don't think anyone can understand it unless you've been in their shoes.
"I'd love the Environment Agency to come down and see what's being done.
"These residents mean business. They're not going to sit there and roll over.
This isn't the first time these residents have come together to install their own flood defences. In 2020, they raised more than £3,000 which they used to make their own sandbags to put up along the banks of the river.
Residents believe that these sandbags have saved them from flooding three times so far.
However, according to Coun Wilkinson, these sandbags have now corroded and needed to be replaced.
New Year's Eve was another near miss with flood water from the drains coming into people's gardens.
She said: "At the end of the day, they're the residents who, every night, when it's been another downpour, they're the ones who are sat up, looking at the flood warnings and the river going up, watching the other residents like we did on New Year's Eve."
Coun Wilkinson is still fighting for a permanent solution. Last month, she raised the issue at a Bolton council meeting.
Council leader Nick Peel said that the local authority has asked the Environment Agency to draft up new options for flood defences, including temporary measures that could be deployed and alternatives to the £30m project for which funding has not been secured.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: 'We understand the devastating impacts that flooding can have.
'We have looked closely at ways to reduce flood risk for residents in Riverside Drive. However, we are unfortunately unable to proceed due to estimated construction costs, engineering difficulties in preliminary works and the complexities involved.
"We understand this news will be disappointing and we will continue to work alongside our local partners and the community in Kearsley to manage flood risk in this area.'
A Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: 'The role of any Government is to protect its citizens. Yet the Government has inherited flood defences in their worst condition on record.
'That is why under our Plan for Change, we are investing a record £2.65 billion to build and maintain flood defences to protect lives, homes and businesses in Manchester and across the country from the dangers of flooding.'
