One year on: Great Glen villagers say they ‘live in fear’ each time it rains
Villagers in Great Glen say they live in fear and are full of anxiety each time it rains since their village was flooded in January last year.
On that date, the floods in Great Glen left 55 homes flooded – that is compared to just five homes the previous year when Storm Henk hit the UK.
As we reported at the time, the owner of Italian Greyhound pub, Cimi Kazazi, was hailed a hero after wading into ‘paralysing’ floodwater to rescue a woman trapped in her car near his pub-restaurant. He was awarded a ‘Star Award’ by National Pubwatch.
Many homes were ruined by floods that day, with some villagers only starting to return to their homes one year on.
Among them are Andy Smith and his wife Angela, who live near the Italian Greyhound Pub on London Road, which was badly hit by the floods twice in the space of 12 months. Andy’s home is hundreds of years old, but he said it hadn’t suffered any flooding until 2024.
Speaking of the devastation the floods brought, Andy, who has terminal cancer, said his home was originally built in 1610, and when the couple bought the house in 2014, there were no records of it flooding.
The 68-year-old said the first time the house flooded was on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, which meant they had to have everything replaced.
Andy explained: “[After the 2024 floods], everything downstairs was new, the kitchen was new. We lived upstairs for a month, but that was enough, you know, we’ve got two dogs, so I was having to carry them downstairs, let them out on a piece of grass that I’d tried my best to decontaminate [from the residue left by the floods].
“Then I’d take them back in the house, wash their paws, carry them back upstairs, and yeah, I had to do that for a month. That was rather exhausting.
“We eventually moved into [alternative accommodation] on Friday, February 2, 2024. Then we boxed everything up ready for moving back home on Friday, January 10, 2025 [and then the floods came on Monday, January 6.]
“We were lucky in so much as we could stay in the rented accommodation [after the second flood] because we had this trepidation that we were going to have to move somewhere else, but everything was boxed, so we had to unbox everything, which was again a bit of a nightmare.”
Reliving the day they realised their house had been flooded once again, Andy said: “It was worse the second time. This time it was three foot in our house, and I had a call from [the next door neighbour] saying ‘Andy I think the house has flooded again’ and when I drove there at five o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t get to our house at the time, the water was like a torrent, it was up to our letterbox.
“I sat in the car and I must admit there were a few tears. Everything brand new was destroyed. It was a pretty horrendous time. Angela has a rare autoimmune illness, called Scleroderma, and her health has really suffered over the last two years.”
The 68-year-old said the couple finally moved back last October, having been out of the house for 21 months altogether. Alongside the work to make the house good on the inside, Andy said they have had floodgates installed to protect their house and the houses in the immediate vicinity against further potential flooding.
He added: “I’ve spent quite a bit on having the house walls repointed with waterproof mortar then I’ve put some fluid restraints in the garage as well because our garage sits below the house. And we’ve still got the back garden to sort.”
He said: “[The flood prevention work] doesn’t stop the trepidation every time it rains, and then you keep on going out and monitoring the flood.”
Andy says he’s been shutting the gates every night, and added that Burton Brook [which runs in front of his home] had not burst its banks in the recent rainfall.
He said: “In a way, you want something to come along that does burst its banks, so it tests what you’ve got there, but on the other hand, you don’t want that to happen just in case they don’t work”.
He said: “You constantly look at the weather reports. I’ll bet you we’ve had four or five flood alerts, but there’s been nothing material that’s hit any of the houses so far, and [the water at] Burton Brook hasn’t got above the arches.
“You do live in fear all the time, and have anxiety when it rains. I’ve got terminal cancer, so I could do without the stress, and stress can make my wife’s illness worse.
“I feel as I’ve done as much as I possibly can, and hopefully that will be enough. I never used to bother about the weather before, but now I’m constantly monitoring it when we get a day of persistent rain.”
Susan and Gurdip Bains’ house in the village’s Main Street is still recovering from the floods.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) spoke to Susan, who has been living away from her house for over a year now.
When the rain came, the house was flooded up to the first two steps inside her home. When the couple woke up that morning, they could not get down the stairs without having to wade through the water.
One year on, the couple have still not moved back into their home. At first they were moved into a Premier Inn. They then rented a house nearby in Great Glen, but that was sold within six months so they were on the move again.
They then moved to a house in Oadby where they are currently based until they move back into their home. They will finally be moving back to their home in March, over one year and two months since the floods.
Susan said: “We’re not back yet so basically, the fixtures and fittings and the kitchen’s been fitted. All the cupboard doors and knobs and everything have just got to be fitted. The painting work has started now.” You could hear the relief in her voice as things were finally starting to come together.
When the LDRS visited in early February last year, there was the unmistakable hum of dehumidifiers around the house. They were there for approximately another two months, Susan explained.
She said the builders then came to start the work but the concrete and the walls were still not dry enough, so the dehumidifiers came back for another month in preparation for them to start. One of the rooms downstairs had to have the floorboards lifted, and concrete added, Susan explained, to stop the water coming in again.
She added: “And then we’re having flood doors put in. And we’re having some drainage put in [at the front] after they finish the house. So there’s still quite a lot of work to do on the outside.
“I still feel there’s lots to do before we move in. We just want to protect our house. I’m just dreading moving back in, but I’ve got to be excited as well.
“We’ve had the worst of the floods. Nothing can get worse now.”
The environment agency advises people to check their flood risk, sign up for free flood warnings and keep up to date with the latest situation at “check-for-flooding.gov.uk”.