Five years on from the Boxing Day floods

Date published: 26 December 2020

The Boxing Day floods in 2015 were an unprecedented and surreal experience in the borough. A combination of the wettest and warmest December on record, along with over 100mm of rainfall, led to flooding not seen in living memory.

Numerous parts of the borough were affected. In Rochdale town centre, 65 businesses were affected by floodwater ingress and over half of those affected were independents.

The worst affected areas were The Walk, South Parade, The Butts, and the bottom of Yorkshire Street. In the main it was sole traders and small businesses, many of whom couldn’t get flood insurance.

The River Roch broke its banks at the back of Number One Riverside and water cascaded through the recently built £50million building causing major damage. Some blamed the newly-opened river on The Butts for the devastation, despite flood mitigation being a key part of the design, with the flooding occurring from further up near the council offices, a part of the river which has always been uncovered.

The box culvert that starts at the entrance to Number One Riverside and runs through town, bar the two new openings, across to the police station could not cope with the sheer volume of water and debris that had been washed down river, so water did what water does and found an alternative route, down Smith Street and along The Esplanade, inundating buildings along its route. 

In total, over 320 properties in Rochdale and Littleborough were severely damaged, with 18,000 properties left without power as the substation behind Asda, Rochdale, also flooded, resulting in the massive power cut. Heybrook and Todmorden Road were also badly affected.

Every river in Lancashire reached record levels that day, with flooding also occurring further up the Calder Valley in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge.

The response on the ground by residents, businesses and council workers, and the spirit shown as the community pulled together to assist those whose homes and businesses had been devastated, was exemplary.

Since the 2015 floods, the council, with support from the Environment Agency and Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, has taken a number of preventative measures, including installing a number of flood alleviation measures including flood doors and barriers and self-sealing airbricks.

Two storage reservoirs were built in Littleborough, at Springfield Avenue and Townhouse Road, as part of a £500,000 flood alleviation scheme for Calder Brook. These reservoirs, which together can hold 12,000m3 of water, the equivalent of four Olympic-sized swimming pools or 20 local pools, reduce flood risk for 66 properties and also help with flooding issues in the wider area. They also help hold back excess water and reduce the amount of water which travels downstream into Rochdale town centre.

In 2018, the government announced £5m to be granted towards a £46m flood defence scheme to be built in the borough of Rochdale.

Work on this scheme, building a series of storage reservoirs along the River Roch and its tributaries from Littleborough to Rochdale town centre, began last summer, with construction beginning in Littleborough in spring 2020 and in Rochdale in 2021.

The upcoming flood defence scheme is expected to deliver £455m worth of benefits over its lifetime and will improve flood protection for 1,000 residential properties and 200 local businesses as well as major infrastructure like the tram network, the bus interchange, colleges, a grid substation and waste water treatment works.

The new scheme features a range of measures to reduce the risk of flooding across Rochdale and Littleborough including a new flood storage area at Gale, as well as raised walls and improvements to culverts and bridges in areas including Greenvale Brook, Town House Brook, Ealees Brook, Buckley Brook and Hey Brook.
 

Read more: Multi-million pound flood scheme in Rochdale and Littleborough given the green lightPublished: 21 May 2020

The approved plans incorporate the first phase of a three-step process that has been developed to create what will eventually become one of the largest and most complex inland flood risk management schemes in the north of England. Once completed, the Rochdale and Littleborough Flood Alleviation Scheme will improve flood protection for 1,000 residential properties and 200 local businesses as well as major infrastructure such as the tram network, the bus interchange, schools and colleges, a grid substation and the waste water treatment works.

Led by the Environment Agency in partnership with Rochdale Council, proposed works for the Phase 1a planning application are set to include defences at various locations in Littleborough, the replacement of Riverstone Bridge and the widening of the river channel at the same location as well as the removal of Charles Street Bridge and temporary access works into the Gale site to allow it to be turned into a flood storage reservoir, as part of Phase 1b.

Works will also combine the permanent diversion of Greenvale Brook at Gale East and a culvert extension within the same site.

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