Bottesford residents share how the floods have affected them

A community came together to rescue the village’s homes and businesses following floods that left the high street looking like a “river”.

In the early hours of Monday (January 6), areas around Newark and Sherwood suffered from heavy rain and snow melt which resulted in drastic floods.

Residents in Bottesford saw the village’s high street become submerged, with businesses and family homes seeing water about four inches high in their buildings.

It was severely affected by the flood on River Devon and River Smite as well as the village’s Ford by St Mary Virgin’s Church.

Peter Sheardown, who was the village’s flood warden for 10 years, said that he sees the ford flood about eight to 10 times a year, but that this year’s incident was a “once in every 20 years” situation.

He said: “The village flooded in 2001, it was exactly the same height and a group of residents who were on the neighbourhood watch decided to become flood wardens.

“In the 2001 floods, we had 95 mm of water in about 25 hours, this time we only had 50mm but this time it brought the snow with it from the hills.”

On Monday, two cars were stranded in the ford just outside Mr Sheardown’s house.

“I just can’t understand why someone is daft enough to go in the ford if they saw it’s flooded,” he added, “It’s just stupid.”Caitlin Wildsmith, who lives just off the High Street, has had to move house due to the floods.

She and her partner left for work around 7.30am on Monday, but around 8am were receiving calls from family members alerting them to the floods.

“When we got here, it was a bit of a mad panic trying to get everything upstairs, we were surprised because we never thought it would be this bad,” she said.

“We had to move out straight away, all the carpets have been ripped off and all the electrics and furniture are damaged.”

Flood warden Russell Fisher said: “This has been one of the worst floods we’ve had since 2001.

“We had to go all the way down the high street, it was terrible over there.

“The ford wouldn’t be so blocked if people didn’t throw so much stuff in the river but we can’t do anything about it unfortunately.

“The main thing was that everyone came together in the village to help everyone out.

“We were giving sandbags where we could, we were helping people get out of the houses.

“The community yesterday absolutely pulled together, it was nice to see everyone joining in and helping where they can, even the smallest thing, everybody helped.”

Mother and daughter said: I grew up in Bottesford, then moved to Grantham and 12 years ago returned to the village.

“It hasn’t affected us directly but there were areas in the village that I have never seen in the village before.

“This has been the worst flood I have ever seen here.

“It went from being a little flood to something you couldn’t go down anywhere, all in a matter of minutes, it all happened so quickly.”

“We have had it like this before but not to the degree it was flooded yesterday, it is quite a shame.”

“It is quite worrying the amount of water that can just arrive within minutes,” added the daughter.

David Middleton, has been living in the village for over 20 years. He said: “The floods were totally different in 2001 because something happened up at the canal.

“This time the water came into our property, but only underneath the stairs, whereas last time it actually came in and we had to have everything stripped out.

“My house just looks like a bombsite at the moment as we had to take everything upstairs to try and prevent a big loss.

“Thankfully all we have got to do is dry out underneath the stairs.”

“However, as I live in a terrace house right off the main road, our problem has always been that if the traffic has not been stopped, the wash from the traffic goes right up the wall.”

“People drive through the village too fast, in vans and trucks, and all the cars were sent off the A1, were trying to come through here and we were just trying to get everybody to slow down.”

Deborah Wilson said: “This is a once-in-a-generation type of flood, we feel so helpless when we can’t help.

“This is a wonderful community over here, everybody dives to help everybody else, and in a village like Bottesford people rely on each other but you can’t take it for granted.”

Alan Mellor, a landlord for properties just off the High Street said: “It’s disappointing because we have just renovated the end cottage.

“We had to take the carpets out and everything out of the properties to try and help, but the water went inside the house about four inches more or less.

“We’ve got dehumidifiers in there so now it’s all about just trying and helping the tenants out.”