The Environment Agency will this month set out its plans to construct a flood defence defence improvement scheme for the town of Stanhope, County Durham.

The Agency is holding a public event on Monday 11 August with flood risk and project officers present to answer any questions from  the community who want to to find out more about the project.

The Environment Agency is proposing to raise some sections of its defences on the River Wear to improve flood protection to 100 homes that are at risk.

Chris Wotherspoon, project manager for the Environment Agency, said:

“This work will improve flood defences in Stanhope to provide a more uniform standard of protection from the River Wear. There are defences along this part of the River Wear but these offer different standards of protection, so we are looking to raise some defences and improve their general condition.”

The work will include the raising of an embankment and increasing the height and strength of existing walls. No start date has yet been set for the work, but it is expected to be carried out this financial year.

Some 21 properties were flooded in Stanhope in January 1995, when river levels rose following heavy rainfall. After this, the Environment Agency constructed new flood defences to improve protection, and these significantly limited the damage caused by a rainfall event in January of 2005, when the Wear reached higher levels at Stanhope than they did in 1995.

The new  project, designed using new modelling data, will further improve the defences , making them able to withstand river levels even higher than those seen in the 2005 incident.

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