MORE than £2 million worth of flood defences could be heading their way to Otley by the year 2005.

The Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee recently approved the Environment Agency's 10-year plan for flood defence work, with £2.1 million earmarked for flood defences in Otley between 2003-2005.

No specific flood defence scheme has been drawn up for Otley yet, Environment Agency project engineer Phil Welton said flooding affected 13 hectares of residential and

commercial land in and around the town,

particularly around the old auction mart and part of the Garnett's Mill site, and that the potential scheme would seek to alleviate those problems.

He said: "We have done a strategy for the River Wharfe which earmarks Otley, Castley Lane and Tadcaster as high priorities for defences. In Otley there is a significant risk of flooding, admittedly it would take a major event on the river for that to happen, but the risk is there nevertheless.

"We will carry out detailed investigations into the issues affecting Otley and conduct a feasibility study to look at the different options. We would come up with a number of possible schemes and gradually eliminate them because of cost or practical issues

"The £2.1 million is just a ball park figure we have come up with at the moment to put into our long-term plan, whether that amount of money gets spent is debatable. Otley does have a history of flooding."

He said that the area around Garnett's Mill and the weir was just one area of the town that was of concern.

An Environment Agency spokeswoman also stressed that no funding had yet been

allocated to the scheme and that no planning permission had been secured.

"We are only at a very early stage and there is a long way to go before we draw up detailed plans," she said. "Basically we know that we want to do something for Otley and that it would need to sympathetic to the water front because it's a tourist town, but we're not much more advanced than that. It's certainly too early to talk about specifics."

But Councillor Graham Kirkland said that he would be against the measures if they were aimed at encouraging new development in the town.

"One of the important features that gives Otley its character is the green strip that runs through the centre of the town and if we lose that to development Otley will lose its distinctiveness. I cannot support the defences if they are aimed at protecting development.

"This is an awful lot of money and I am intrigued at what exactly they have got planned.

"There needs to be some public consultation on this at the very least. "

At the recent Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee meeting, the committee stressed that there was no guarantee that the required funding would be available and recommended that discussions begin between central and local government to address the issue. The Long Term Flood Defence Plan will also have to be examined by MAFF before it gets the final go-ahead.

As previously reported, flood-hit residents on Castley Lane near Pool-in-Wharfedale could receive £500,000 worth of flood defence measures.

l Last week, an Environment Agency spokeswoman mistakenly told the Wharfedale Observer that the Otley flood defence scheme would cost £21,000 and has apologised for the error.