Eight-and-a-half months after the river Calder invaded his terrace with such force that the neighbouring travel agency collapsed into the water, Tony Kay was finally able to clear out the house on Thursday. “Good riddance,” he said, as he lugged bits of kitchen into the boot of his car on Burnley Road in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire.
He couldn’t wait to give the keys to an Environment Agency official and be shot of the place, one of 238 homes, 48 businesses and one school in the Calder Valley still uninhabitable after the Boxing Day floods. The Agency offered to buy the doomed property and Kay didn’t need asking twice.
“In the six or seven years I’ve had this place it’s flooded twice. No one else would buy it so I had to rent it out. Since 2013 I’ve had no flood insurance so it’s cost me an arm and a leg,” he said. Maria Holmes, his partner, added: “It’s been a noose around his neck. We can’t afford to fix everything. The fear every time it rains is unbearable.”
The Environment Agency’s purchase of the house, along with the neighbouring properties, is part of the government’s flood resilience programme, which aims to avoid a repeat of the devastation caused by December’s heavy rainfall. At 3pm on Boxing Day the Calder was at 5.65m, the highest level ever recorded and more than 3.5m above its usual peak. The river rampaged down Burnley Road, reaching up to the green filter on the traffic lights, the force of the water smashing every window in its wake. Kay’s tenants had to be rescued by boat from their upstairs window.
Kay hadn’t had time to read the government’s 146-page flood resilience report on Thursday. Janet Battye had managed a quick skim, up the road in Todmorden. The town councillor was sceptical that it would help the Calder Valley.
“While it’s obviously a useful piece of scientific review/research – as a result of which the government is putting some money into temporary flood defences – I’m not sure how much help it would be to us in the Calder Valley if there was to be another flood tomorrow/next week,” she said.
“It doesn’t seem to tackle the problem of getting information to people about what’s happening (our most reliable source of information is a Facebook page on which local community flood wardens put information when they get it from the Environment Agency) and we found that flood defences – flood gates and sandbags – were of little use on Boxing Day.”
The report offered little solace to Brian and Frances Marsden, who for 57 years had lived on Calder Grove in their terrace, which backs right onto the river. The couple, in their 80s, had to be rescued on Boxing Day. Two weeks ago they handed over their keys to the Environment Agency, which plans to demolish their home to give the river more space. “It’s had a big impact on them. I think it’s definitely taken time off their lives,” said their grandson, Calum, 23.
Others were trying to make the most of the situation. Christian Pollitt and Kate Whiteman run The Libertine, a pub on Burnley Road in Mytholmroyd. Uninsurable, the couple accept that running a pub by a river carries risks. They re-opened on the August bank holiday weekend, having expanded and flood-proofed the property as best they could: the bar is built from breeze blocks, the walls are studded with galvanised steel rather than wood and covered with moisture-resistant plaster board.
“There’s no point in doing anything else,” said Pollitt. “Luckily, people around here seem to like the rustic look.”
