YORKSHIRE Water has assured a councilor and residents in the Lane Ends area of Earby that it is ready for any flood situation.

A spokesman for the company said she believed measures taken would prevent a repeat of previous high risk scenarios.

Heavy rainfall in February led to properties being threatened and several were damaged by flood water in October 2000.

Work has been carried out since then, including the installation of new grates and gullies to take the water from Hill Top to the pumps.

However, residents and councillors remain anxious about what procedures are in place to prevent a repeat.

A resident told the West Craven Committee she was concerned about how strong the pumps were and confused why larger grates had been put over the original small entrance to the drains.

The highways department said the bigger drains were installed to take more water off the road. Once in the drains, it would be sucked down by the pumps.

Coun David Whipp moved that certain proposals should be put to Yorkshire Water, including the need for more regular desilting of foul and surface water sewers and the possibility of Lancashire Fire and Rescue holding a key for access to the pumping station.

He said: "It is important to inform them that desilting needs to be done on a regular basis so that there is no back-up in the drains.

"The arrangement where the fire service holds a key may seem out of date but it is a back-up we should have.

"We should request that Yorkshire Water looks at a system which would allow intervention by people on the ground, rather than having to wait for an engineer.

"I have seen things go wrong too often to trust a system which depends on a single person."

Previous problems have been caused by blockages in the drains, leading to water backing up and putting extra burden on the pumps.

But Caroline Atkins, a representative from Yorkshire Water, told the committee that she believed the pumps would not fail again.

She said: "The last time there was a flood there were only two pumps there but a third has been installed and we believe that will solve the problems.

"We do have a process in place to maintain the pumps. They are checked once a week and every six months all are lifted out and fully serviced to make sure they are working properly.

"We believe it wouldn't fail unless there is a blockage and all three pumps would have to fail for that."

It was decided a further meeting would be arranged within a month to discuss the flooding issues and get an update on the situation.