Cockermouth’s flood defences could fail leading to impacts similar to 2009 unless urgent action is taken to repair the damage done in the recent storm, an expert has warned.
The town’s flood defences, installed in the aftermath of storms in 2009 and 2015, protected the majority of properties from last month’s storm, with only a small number affected.
Multi-million-pound flood defences were installed after the devastating flood events, which saw 466 properties flooded in the town during Storm Desmond.
But last month the town was again impacted by flooding. The Grade II-listed Old Court House on the riverside was closed on Wednesday due to structural concerns, with Allerdale Council working with the owners of the building about the next steps.
But now it has emerged that the recent storm also caused significant damage to the town’s flood defences.
“The foundations are undermined, not the wall itself. If they fail, it’s as if the wall is not there at all and we could see flooding potentially like 2009,” said Darren Ward, architectural advisor to Cockermouth Civic Trust.
“Quite regularly we have record-breaking rain now. We know the latest rainfall was contained and it didn’t flood the town. The rainfall was almost equivalent to 2009 and 2015. The defences protected us.”
He said that it would not take much for the defences to topple in their current state.
“The town is vulnerable to higher river levels if the wall is further undermined,” he said.
“We would only need the river level to rise to flood warning level, it doesn’t need to get particularly high before we start to get real problems.
“If we get some kind of weather event similar to a couple of weeks ago the flood defences could break and we could have a life-threatening situation.”
Mr Ward predicts that the Environment Agency will act quickly.
“I suspect the Environment Agency will deploy temporary measures to protect the town because the work will have to take place in the river and because of the season the level is up and down so you can’t get the equipment in there and it will be difficult to get in there too.
“As a result, it could take six months up to one year or two years, so it will be a long-term thing.”
He expects the Environment Agency will look to either temporarily strengthen the foundations or will build a second wall to protect the town in the event the original one falls.
Mr Ward believes it could take between two and four weeks for any temporary measures to be implemented, which would leave the town more vulnerable until then.
It is anticipated that temporary measures to protect the town would provide the same level of protection as the installed defences.
