A new flood basin designed to protect 200 homes in Horwich town centre appears to be working well after heavy rainfall in the area over the weekend and in to Monday. Localised flooding was widespread throughout the borough on Monday, September 30, with roads full of water and the Environment Agency issuing a flood alert. Residents of Horwich are no stranger to flooding.
(Image: Cllr Ryan Bamforth) Six reported flooding incidents in the area over a period of 20 years led the Environment Agency to fund a £1.8 million project to create a flood basin in Horwich’s Old Station Park, in order to protect 200 properties from the risk of exceptional rainfall events. Sign up to our newsletters to get the latest stories sent straight to your inbox.
The project uses part of the park to temporarily store flood water during large storms, using existing embankments to form a storage basin. Additional new sections of embankment were also constructed. At 5pm on Monday, water levels at Horwich’s Pearl Brook measurement site reached 0.
70 metres – which the Environment Agency says is the top of the normal range for the site. It’s still well below the record 1.47 metres recorded on Boxing Day 2015, when widespread flooding led to chaos throughout the region.
Water levels at Pearl Brook rose to 0.7 metres on Monday, September 30 (Image: Environment Agency) Cllr Ryan Bamforth checked out how the defences were holding up. Speaking to The Bolton News, he said: “The flood basin did work – .
