£35,000 damage to home

9:51am Thursday 26th July 2007

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WOLVERLEY residents are angry they did not receive more official help after seeing their homes wrecked by flooding for the second time in six weeks.

Edward Cheshire and his wife, Lynne, who have lived in their Church Bank cottage for 12 years, believe the damage will cost them £35,000 to put right.

The couple have had to rent a house, in Kidderminster, since the nearby Mill Race Brook burst its banks, on June 19, flooding the ground floor of their home.

After heavy rain, last Friday, their home and the surrounding cottages were hit for the second time.

Mr Cheshire said: "I came here at 6pm on Friday and the brook was very high up the bank, so I left my phone number with a neighbour and went for a drink with friends at the Lock pub.

"I came back an hour later and in that time the brook had risen above 2ft, up to the cottages and water was covering our front garden.

"By the time my wife had got home, half an hour later, it was 2ft up into the kitchen."

By Sunday, the floodwaters had receded enough for the couple to take stock of the damage.

Mr Cheshire added: "The quarry tiled floors have got to come up and all the floorboards in the lounge need to be replaced as well as the joists.

"We've a downstairs bathroom, which we had done out in oak, which has been ruined, and all the kitchen has got to come out." The cottage's carpets had already been thrown away following June's floods.

Jeff Wynne, who is project managing flood repairs at the couple's home and several other properties across Wyre Forest, said the damage would cost £35,000 to put right.

Mr Cheshire went on: "We've not seen anybody from the parish councill or anybody from Wyre Forest District Council.

"All we wanted was one council officer coming down with a load of sandbags but we got nothing."

He said the only flood relief money he had received was a £100 cheque posted through the letterbox and raised by kind-hearted villagers.

The nearby Queen's Head pub has not reopened since the brook first burst its banks in June.

The Cheshires' neighbour, Val Rees, 78, was also cleaning up after Friday's floods as she found the ground floor of her terraced home under 2ft of water.

Mrs Rees, who has lived in the cottage for 19 years and on Quarry Bank, off Blakeshall Lane, for 46 years, said she had never seen such serious flooding, before June.

She said: "All the things I had given to me by people after the last floods have gone. My electrics are off and I can't even boil a kettle to make a cup of tea. I'm 78 and could do without all of this."

Wolverley was cut off on Friday and Saturday as floodwaters from both the brook and the River Stour rose, affecting Hardwick's Landscape Centre and the nearby putting green.