THE repair bill for bridges and roads devastated by freak floods in North Yorkshire could come to almost £5 million.

Council bosses are facing a race to get the majority of the work done in time to qualify for Government funding.

News of the massive bill came as environment bosses revealed that a total of 128 properties were flooded on June 19 after a month's worth of rain - 70mm, or almost three inches - fell in an hour at Hawnby, near Helmsley.

Dales area flood defence manager Peter Holmes said the area would normally expect about 70mm in the whole of June. He said a rain gauge at Hawnby had shown that an astonishing 60mm - more than two inches - fell in only half-an-hour.

He told the Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee that the final figures for flooded properties included eight at Hawnby, 17 at Helmsley, 48 in Thirsk, eight at Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe and seven at Rievaulx.

He said debris left behind by the floods included 40ft trees snapped off at the base and at least 40 carcases. "I have never seen anything like it," he said.

Committee members agreed that it would be impossible to design flood defences to protect properties from such a freak event.

The flash floods in the Helmsley and Thirsk area destroyed bridges and culverts, smashed through stone walls, ruined roads, triggered land slips and swept away footbridges.

Meanwhile, North Yorkshire County Council said today that the cost of repairing 26 bridges in the county has been estimated at £2.26 million.

However, the figure could rise to £3.3 million, because the bridge at Shaken, near Helmsley, was so badly damaged that it is in danger of collapse.

Engineers plan to reinforce it at a cost of £280,000, then reclaim the stone and rebuild it at a cost £800,000. However, if the bridge collapses and the stone is lost, repairs will cost a further £1 million.

Divisional highways engineer Peter Renshaw warned that in order to meet the criteria for Government cash, the council had to complete the majority of repair work within eight weeks.

A total of 32 footbridges were also washed away in the North York Moors National Park and will cost £520,000 to replace.

Reconstructing roads in Ryedale and Hambleton is expected to cost more than £1 million.

The clean-up cost was £75,000.

Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh said today that Floods Minister Elliott Morley had given her a "sympathetic hearing" at a meeting to discuss action in the wake of the flash floods.

She said he pledged that the Government would pay for repairs to public roads - but could not provide assistance for privately-owned bridges and roads.

Minor repair work on Helmsley Bridge on Tuesday was hampered when bomb disposal officers had to be called to deal with a device that turned out to be the casing of a Second World War mortar shell.

Town's flood defence costs soar

THE bill for protecting Selby from another devastating flood has soared to almost £14 million - more than three times the original estimate.

The Environment Agency, which is providing new defences for 1,550 homes and 300 commercial properties, has revealed how a series of additional costs have been identified since work started last autumn.

These include a 50 per cent hike in the cost of steel sheet piling, inflation, higher consultancy fees, extra compensation payments, and additional costs for wider and higher defences.

When the agency first decided to take action to protect Selby and Barlby, in the wake of the devastating floods of November 2000, it said it was looking to spend about £4.5 million.

But that figure had risen to £10 million by the time the Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee came to approve the scheme in 2003.

Members of the committee raised concerns about the rocketing costs at a meeting in Leeds yesterday, and agreed that a finance sub-committee should look into how it had happened.

They said it was only the latest example of a project costing millions more than had been originally estimated.

The Malton and Norton defences were originally expected to cost £4.1 million, but the eventual bill came in at £9 million, while the Stamford Bridge defences cost £3.5 million, compared with the original estimate of about a million pounds.

Peter Holmes, the agency's Dales area flood defence manager, said the extra money for the Selby scheme would come out of the national pot, and would not therefore lead to cuts in Yorkshire's budget for other projects.

He said that despite the rising costs, the bill for the defences still worked out at less than £10,000 per property.

Updated: 09:46 Friday, July 15, 2005