|
The Stokesley Floods
|
Then in 1976 - Many Stokesley residents faced a weekend of chaos when the River Leven burst its banks following a torrential rainstorm. By tea-time flood water had swirled into the town, turning the High Street into a river, swamping nearby shops and cutting all telephone communications.
Residents in
Levenside, where the water rose to six feet, were marooned and had to watch helplessly as water poured into their ground floor
rooms. It was the worst flood Stokesley had experienced since 1929. So quickly did the water rise that scores of cars were stranded and some shoppers had to wade home. At one time the town was entirely cut off by deep flooding on approach roads. |
The floods sparked off angry protests against the Northumbrian River Board whose £130,000 flood protection scheme for Stokelsey was shelved five years ago on economic grounds.
Mr Charles Thompson, chairman of Stokesley Parish Council said that Stokesley had been badly flooded when the Leven burst its banks just twelve months ago and repeated requests had been made to the Board for this protection work to be carried out, but the appeals had fallen on deaf ears. A spokesman for the River Board confirmed that a protection scheme for the town had been drawn up about five years ago but had been turned down because the cost wasn’t justified. He said an on the spot investigation would take place to see why the floods had occurred.
It wasn’t just Stokesley that suffered from the rain storms. In Middlesbrough residents had to take to the boats to escape flood water that surged down Borough Road, and in the Esk Valley the River Esk flooded large tracts of land and caused traffic chaos as roads became impassable.
Now in
1998 - The Stokesley flood relief scheme was finally completed in 1979 at a cost of £650,000. The relief channel cuts under the Stokesley/Great Ayton road circumventing the town via Broughton Beck and Eller Beck, before rejoining the River Leven south of Stokesley.
It has been very successful and no further flooding has been reported.
A feasibility study is under way for a similar flood prevention scheme at Great Ayton. A River Board spokesman confirmed that a number of properties in this village are at
risk.
This article originally appeared in the May 1998 issue of Now
& Then Magazine
|
