Scarborough floods of August 2017 cost £240,000 just on road repairs

As reported in the link below, on August 23 2017 Scarborough was deluged by an intense burst of rain which caused flooding damage to more than 130 properties, including homes, schools and businesses.

Scarborough got close to its annual August rainfall total in less than one hour on that day.

The total value of the repairs to road surfaces alone was £240,000.

North Yorkshire County Council, as the Lead Local Flood Authority, has carried out an investigation into what can be learned in the aftermath.

In a report, which will go before its Business and Environmental Services corporate director and executive members meeting next week, it notes that the 748 million litres of rain was enough to fill 300 Olympic sized swimming pools.

However, the report also concluded that blocked drains were not the cause of the flooding and warns that there is little that can be done to prevent a repeat.

“The flood event in Scarborough did not result from an unprecedented amount of rainfall. Scarborough is however vulnerable to short, intense summer storms owing to its topography and the impermeable nature of the catchment.

“If climate change predictions are accurate there is a likelihood of further such flood events in the future.

“Increasing the capacity of the existing drainage network to a level where it could cope with this type of flood event is not realistic in the short term.”

Following the flooding, there were 25 calls to North Yorkshire Highways which cited blocked gullies as being the cause of localised flooding.

The report found: “Of these, four were confirmed on inspection to actually be blocked, although as they were inspected after the event had passed it is not clear that they were blocked before the rain fell or whether they became blocked during the course of events as debris washed off the roads.”

Among the areas worst hit were Eastborough, which leads down to the beach from the town centre, Valley Road, Ramshill and the roads around Peasholm Park and its lake.

The storm that hit was not forecast and despite being an almost a one-in-100-year event it was only the fifth highest August daily rainfall event in Scarborough in recent years.

The report concludes that the county should look at how it can mitigate some of the impacts from flooding and work with Scarborough Borough Council to see if areas including The Mere, Throxenby Mere and land upstream of Edgehill Road could be used to catch water from intense downpours.

See here about the day in 2017 when there was enough rain to fill 300 Olympic sized swimming pools.

See here for another devasting flood that hit Scarborough, this time in 2002.