Horncastle flooding "probably" unavoidable, says new report

The Environment Agency was "probably" right to say that flooding in a Lincolnshire town in 2023 could not have been prevented, an independent review has concluded.

A delay in opening a sluice gate in Horncastle was unlikely to have caused the flooding, say environment consultants.

Lincolnshire County Council, which commissioned the report, said there was "no smoking gun" but that questions remained.

The Environment Agency (EA) declined to comment.

Almost 200 properties in Horncastle were flooded following Storm Babet in October last year.

The EA said that more than two years of rain fell in 24 hours, overwhelming defences.

A reservoir sluice gate, which is part of the town's flood alleviation scheme, did not close automatically and had to be manually operated, causing a delay of more than 10 hours.

But, in its own assessment, the EA said the flooding would have happened anyway.

A technical review by environmental consultant GeoSmart Information said it was "likely" the EA's assessment was correct "on the balance of probability".

But it added that it did not have access to all the flood modelling and other data used by the EA.

It was also critical of the sluice gate's systems for automatically opening and closing, saying it had "a history of poor performance".

Lincolnshire County Council commissioned the review after some Horncastle residents said they did not accept the EA's conclusions .

Environment portfolio holder Colin Davie said the report "shows there was no smoking gun" but said there were some findings where there could be some improvements for the future.

"I promised the people of Horncastle that we would fact check the agency's work and we've done that and it now opens up a proper discussion on how we look after the people of Horncastle in the years ahead."

The Environment Agency declined to comment.

At a public meeting in April it said it had already made some improvements to the sluice gate operating system.