Flood defences failed when sensor became wet (From Worcester News)

Flood defences failed when sensor became wet

11:00am Saturday 15th December 2012 in News By James Connell

A FAULTY sensor which failed because it got wet caused the 15 Kempsey homes to flood.

An independent report by Arup, commissioned by the Environment Agency, was released yesterday into the flooding in the early hours of Sunday, November 25.

The report blamed the automatic sensor that works the pumps which malfunctioned after it got submerged by flood water.

The £1.7 million flood defences had only been opened on August 28 which provoked anger from residents, particularly those in Church Street who thought the defences would protect them.

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said: “The pumps are now working and will be manually operated this winter. We will ensure the faults are rectified as soon as possible so the pumping station operates automatically as it is designed to.”

Anthony Perry, West Midlands flood risk manager, said: “We are very sorry that the pumping station did not operate as intended in Kempsey especially as it had operated successfully twice this year. Our thoughts go out to the residents affected.

“We will continue to be in Kempsey to switch on the pumps at times of flood until the faults are fixed, and will work with the local community to regain their trust in this scheme.”

West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin, who helped open the defences, said: “This needs to be fixed immediately so people in Kempsey can have confidence the flood defences will work as expected.”

She said she will also ask the Environment Agency to send out a flood alert to homeowners if their own internal monitoring sees an engineer called out.

She said: “Malvern Hills District Council has also made ex-gratia payments to help those affected.”

Malvern Hills councillor David Harrison said he wanted to read the report in detail before responding.