A team from Yorkshire Water was seen in the village recently (Boroughbridge Road) installing sensors to measure the rise and fall of water through the sewage pipes.

This could well be the first response to the meeting held around the village on 19th September called for by MP, Sir Alec Shelbrooke, who was elected this year to represent the new Wetherby and Easingwold Constituency. He wanted to help explain to the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water and NYC the villagers’ concerns about the risk of serious flooding posed by current and future building developments given that, as Yorkshire Water admit, the existing drainage and sewerage systems are close to capacity.

For a report on the meeting by BMAG please click here

For a report on the meeting by the Parish Council please click here.

One major difficulty faced is that Yorkshire Water claim not to have had any reports of instances of sewage coming out of manholes. Villagers might like to consider ringing Yorkshire Water on 0345 1242424 if they see manholes overflowing, particularly by the school, and tell them. The more this happens, the more they might listen.

Lack of information about the capacity of the village's Victorian drainage system may also explain why the Council stated at a previous meeting to discuss the Church Farm Development that if they had been aware of the issues with drainage in Bishop Monkton they may well not have allocated sites around the village.

Given that NYC are now working on a new local development plan, the lesson for all of us is to make sure that the Council receives evidence of all future instances of flooding in the village. So please would any villagers with photographic evidence of such occurrences forward it to editor@bishopmonktontoday.org.uk

The M.P. was asked for comments/reactions from the meeting and any received will be published within this article.