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Deluged again

Chris Jones
3/ 7/2008

TORRENTIAL rain caused havoc for drivers and householders across Middleton as a month’s rain fell in just a few hours.

Heavy showers struck across the town last Thursday evening, reducing some roads to rivers, threatening homes and flooding businesses as drains were overwhelmed as up to 65mm of rain fell in a single evening.

A stretch of Manchester Old Road was engulfed by flash floods, making it virtually impassable and stranding three vehicles. The cellars of four homes were also flooded next to the water-logged highway for the second time in two years.

On Langley a newsagent was forced to bail out water as it streamed through his shop on Lakeland Court.

Across town, the River Irk near Townley Street was reported to be several feet higher than usual and the historic Old Grammar School on Boarshaw Road was again immersed under water.

Iqbal Patel, a director at Lakeland News on Langley said he has lost over £1,000 in stock after his premises were flooded.

He said: "We locked up Thursday evening as usual and when we came back on Friday morning the shop was flooded.

"I've been here 13 years and we've had heavy rain in the past but we've never been flooded before.

"The water was coming in the back and coming out the front. It still smells a bit damp even though we've mopped the floor five or six times since."

In Rhodes, three vehicles, including a van, were reported to have become stuck in deep water along Manchester Old Road.

Residents living next to the street saw ten inches of water flood into the cellars.

Simon Haughton, a teaching assistant who lives on nearby Armitage Close, said: "It was raining really hard and I said to my grandmother I wonder if the bottom of the road would flood again as it seems to every two years.

"I went upstairs to have a look and cars were passing by normally. I went up again half an hour later and I could see the road was flooded.

"The drains can't cope. There was sewage and there were all sorts of things floating about in there."

Middleton and Heywood MP Jim Dobbin praised quick-thinking agencies and the fire service for averting a repeat of the 2006 floods in the town, but insisted it be taken as a wake up call.

He said: "It was a close call and they deserve a big thank you. Although the immediate danger has been averted, there are various aspects of the flooding problems that I intend to take up with the authorities."

A Met Office spokesman confirmed the average rainfall for June is 65mm - with that amount falling in parts of Greater Manchester on Thursday evening.

MORE: Flooded for second time in two years