Families win flood defence fight

Families in a South Tyneside street are celebrating after winning their six-year campaign to protect their homes from flooding.

Residents of Newland Court, South Shields, have had to replace furniture and refurbish their homes because of the problem.

It was caused by the sewerage network not being able to cope with the amount of water caused by heavy downpours.

But now Northumbrian Water is spending £3m to build a flood defence tank.

Resident Richard Rattenbury said: "It's been horrendous. You go to sleep on a night time with rain and you just wake up thinking has it happened again?"

Neighbours worked together to highlight the problem and won the support of South Shields MP David Milliband.

Stuck together

Mr Rattenbury said: "Brilliant. The effort by the MP and neighbours all sticking together it's finally worked out."

Cara Hall, from Northumbrian Water, said it had taken six years because it had to prioritise schemes that it spends money on.

She said: "We have upgraded 240m of sewer pipe and installed a huge storage tank, which holds 4.5m litres of water and just to give you and idea of how big that is, it can hold 53,000 baths full of water."

Work has already begun and should be completed by the end of the year.

The tank will hold water that the sewerage network cannot hold in times of extremely heavy rain.