A GROUP of residents and a Darfield councillor claim the failure to dredge rivers and maintain dikes and drains at regular intervals made the recent flooding worse in Darfield and Wombwell.
Coun Trevor Smith said he had 'first class' information that Bulling Dike and the rivers had not been cleared of silt and debris for some years.
"The rivers and dikes were cleared on a regular basis until about seven years' ago," added Coun Smith, a former council officer who proposes to raise his complaints at a meeting of the council .
Mrs Jill Barton, of Netherwood Road, Wombwell, has also compiled information about drainage and flooding in the valley since she had problems with water in her cellar.
In 2001 the borough council admitted in a letter to her that the water table was higher than it should be because dikes and rivers had not been maintained on a regular basis. Measures to curb the problem soon fizzled out due, says Mrs Barton, to financial cutbacks.
