Thursday, 7 September 2006

Banbury: Plea for anti-flood cash fails

A flood-prevention scheme for Banbury has failed to secure vital Government funding, preventing the project from going ahead - reports the Banbury Cake.

Since 1998, when the town last flooded, the Environment Agency has been working on a scheme to protect against a repeat occurance.

But the main part of the scheme, set to cost £12m, depended on support from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to go ahead.

Facing competition from flood-prevention schemes around the country, Banbury's bid for funding has not been successful.

Richard Harding, the Environment Agency's project manager for the scheme, said: "We are aware this will disappoint people hoping for the protection a scheme like this would have provided.

"We believed this was a perfectly viable scheme."