£19m flood alleviation scheme to be completed by 2026

Flood resilience programme partners heard the scheme, estimated at about £19 million, will better protect 55 homes and 359 businesses in the Calderdale town, one of several badly hit by flooding in the last decade.

The town’s two parks in which flood water storage areas are being created – Wellholme Park and Whinney Hill park – should see work there completed by spring 2026.

A look at how the work to prevent flooding is progressing in Brighouse (Image: T&A)

Construction is under way at Wellholme Park, where two new weirs have been built next to Clifton Beck and work has also started on three new pedestrian bridges there.

In the park work to create the food water storage area, drainage and swales has started – swales are small channels filled with vegetation and aggregate which carry flood water to the storage area.

The work in Brighouse is designed to prevent flooding which has blighted the town over the last decade (Image: T&A)

Residents are warned construction traffic will increase in coming months as clay, which will be used in the storage basin and new embankments, is imported and soil exported.

Meanwhile, Environment Agency officer Jo Arnold told Calderdale Flood Recovery and Resilience Programme Board that work at Whinney Hill Park is expected to start soon.

An artist's impression of how the flood alleviation work in Brighouse will look (Image: Calderdale Council)

Drainage work on the River Calder has been completed, she said.

In all, work on the whole Brighouse scheme will encompass repair and renewal of existing flood defences, installation of new riverside defences, the park flood water storage areas, culvert improvements and improvements to surface water drainage.

Works of the scheme started in February this year.

Brighouse was ravaged by the Boxing Day floods of 2015, when the River Calder burst its banks.

Other local towns including Mirfield, Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge, as well as large parts of Bradford and the wider region, were also badly hit.

In total, around 6,000 homes and businesses were damaged by the floods, costing West Yorkshire an estimated half-a-billion pounds.

A vehicle submerged in water at Thornhills Beck Lane, Brighouse, in 2023 (Image: West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service)

Further serious flooding has occurred in Calderdale, including Storm Ciara in February 2020, with a number of ‘near miss’ events since that time.

In 2023, a motorist had to be rescued from his vehicle after getting stuck in floodwateron Thornhills Beck Lane, off the A641 Bradford Road, in Brighouse, as Storm Gerrit battered the district.

Firefighters were scrambled to the scene, with West Yorkshire Police also in attendance.