A dentist whose practice has flooded five times in little more than a year is hoping the problem can finally be fixed after months of investigations.

The Carnegie Dental Clinic in Windhill, Shipley, suffered a major flood 14 months ago when dirty water and silt rushed into the practice’s backyard and cellar.

The five foot swell of water wiped out dental equipment valued at £20,000 and a new boiler and re-wiring was needed.

Since then, practice owner Alex Horn said her business, on the junction of Leeds Road and Carr Lane, has been flooded to a lesser extent four times. Sandbags now line the building and are placed in front of the door each night.

“Every time it rains I think, ‘not again’,” she said.

“It’s horrible sludge and it smells like it has sewage in it. From a business point of view, it’s not good.”

Last week ward councillors wrote to Yorkshire Water about a hole which appeared at the junction in August, asking it to repair it, but yesterday the company’s probings found it was not to blame. A spokesman said: “We have carried out investigation work to establish the cause of the hole in the road in Carr Lane and the flooding experienced by the Carnegie Dental Clinic.

“Our investigation found that both the hole in the road and the flooding are caused by problems with a stone culvert connected to the highway gully and therefore are the responsibility of the local authority highways department. During our investigation work our contractors dug a trial hole and identified a blockage in the culvert, which may explain the flooding problems. Our sewer is on the opposite side of the road and is not connected to the gully from which the water was discharging.”

Mrs Horn said: “I hope that Bradford Council will now formally accept responsibility for the flooding in light of the new findings, and take action to repair the stone culvert.”

Earlier this month, the Council wrote to the practice saying major resurfacing work was planned for the area, but it said the issue with Yorkshire Water was an “ongoing concern” and so delayed work.

Meanwhile managers at Centa, based at nearby Thackley Court, are planning to increase their drainage system as part of an extension currently being built after being flooded this and last summer. Manufacturing manager Andrew Dean said the Leeds Road drainage system could not cope.

“It needs investigating and then needs looking at and if it’s cleaning and a bit of maintenance or if it needs upgrading, it needs to be done,” he said. Bradford Council could not provide a response yesterday.