Residents say the flood that tore through the lower part of Laxey was avoidable.

Following torrential rain on Tuesday, the Laxey river burst its banks and flooded several homes on Glen Road, just under four years since the village last flooded in December 2015.

Just after 7.30am the river flooded the road. Cars were swept away and homes swamped, resulting in some residents being trapped upstairs.

The damage caused by the floods has forced some residents to temporarily move out of their homes.

Residents are now counting the cost of the damage and asking why the flooding was allowed to happen.

Work was being carried out at a weir near the Laxey Woollen Mill and a hole had been made in the river wall to allow access for the contractor’s digger.

Floodwater poured through the hole onto Glen Road.

Meanwhile, fallen trees and other debris got caught in another historic weir further downstream, creating a dam, which resulted in the river bursting its banks here, too.

Flooding on Glen Road was eased only when the emergency services breached the wall at a third point, allowing the water to be diverted back into the river.

Manx Utilities, whose contractors were carrying out the work at the higher weir to create a salmon pass, denies liability. It claims that the hole in the wall for the digger had actually eased pressure on the water system.

Work in the river started on July 29 and was due to finish at the end of September, to avoid the salmon and trout spawning season, but the project was delayed by poor weather.

Village resident Richard Kneen told the Manx Independent: ’They’ve asked them to do the work at this time of year, knowing it’s flood season. This is when we get the big floods like the last one when we got flooded out then.

’Somebody should take the rap. Whoever made the decision to do that work at this time of year, needs to go.’

Mr Kneen had only minimal flooding in his home.

He said: ’This could’ve been avoided. I was going to put on Facebook the night before the flood about the hole in the wall and the flood coming with the weather warning.

’I know this river. I just thought that someone would have had a bit of common sense and put some bags there filled with sand and some planks, which would have stopped it.’

Mr Kneen said he and his neighbours were also critical of the lack of maintenance on the river bank since the 2015 flood.

’The water has brought that dead wood down and it has piled up against the old salmon trap,’ he said. ’That’s backed it up as well. You can see it plain and simple.’

maintenance

’They were told four years ago to do more maintenance on the river banks and take all the dead wood away and they did nothing.’

Other neighbours backed Mr Kneen’s view.

One said: ’There has been no maintenance done since that last flood and the bridge was removed. You can walk up the river and there are trees, trunks, all sorts of stuff and the bank is falling away.’

Manx Utilities said the extent of the rainfall was unexpected.

A spokesman said: ’Our contractors and staff were aware of an amber weather event predicting some 20mm of rainfall. The decision was made to leave the digger off the highway and shutter up to a height of 30mm. The eventual rainfall was over 100mm in two hours.

’The digger did not act as a dam and water did divert from the access hole in the wall but not to the extremes of the wall breach near the [lower] weir where tree debris was backing up the heavy flow of water.’

She said when the river burst its banks, the decision was taken by Manx Utilities to further breach the wall below the weir and put large sandbags in place to redirect flows back into the river and so divert around the weir blockage.

The spokesman said the lower weir was an old MER power generation site.

Manx Utilities has now recommended the removal of the superstructure, under emergency powers, to ensure no further blockages, she said.

’This request has been accepted by Manx National Heritage under MU emergency powers and therefore it will proceed without delay and no planning. The site has been photographed and catalogued for historical purposes.’

The spokesman said that Manx Utilities had previously removed tree debris in the area and also gravel.

A temporary barrier is now in place and flood damage will be repaired soon, she said.

She added: ’There was no warning on the severity of this event. Our river and rain gauge data is showing comparable or worse levels to Storm Desmond in 2015.

impact

’We will be carrying out a detailed post event analysis to confirm the impact the breached wall had.’

She insisted that the river wall is not a flood defence wall and, given the extreme weather, the flooding would have happened anyway, whether or not the contractors had made a hole in the wall.

Asked whether Manx Utilities would accept liability for loss of/damage to homes, businesses and vehicles, she replied: ’This event was not caused by Manx Utilities.’