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Branches of the River Thames in the west and south of Oxford are to be cleared out and new temporary barriers bought to reduce the risk of flooding in the city.

The Environment Agency has finalised a £1.8m package of schemes it claims "will make a real difference" to thousands of homes and businesses living under the threat of a repeat of last summer's devastating floods.

The measures follow more than six months of talks with councils and residents' groups and could be started by the autumn.

Most of the measures will aim to improve water flow through key water channels that criss-cross the city, to reduce the risk of flooding in the Abingdon Road and Botley Road areas.

Planning permission will be sought to divert the course of the Hinksey Drain. And the programme will see the removal of silt and overgrown vegetation along the Seacourt Stream and Bulstake Stream in the Botley Road area and along the Hinksey Drain at the Redbridge end of the Abingdon Road.

Barriers made of galvanised steel are already planned for strategic points on Osney island. The £150,000 mobile defences, which will be stored at the agency's Osney Mead depot, will be ready for use from July.

But the agency said it was now considering similar mobile flood defences for Vicarage Lane, off Abingdon Road.

Geoff Bell, the EA's area flood risk manager, said the measures were "technically feasible, financially viable and environmentally acceptable".

He said: "We have worked with the residents of Oxford and the local authority to come up with some practical solutions to make a real difference to the issue of flooding in the city.

"The proposals we have put forward here are ones which we know we can get done within the next 12 months. Together, they are another phase of the wider Oxford strategy, which aims to identify a long-term and sustainable solution to the risk of flooding in the city."

Susanna Pressel, city councillor for Osney and Jericho who was installed as Lord Mayor yesterday, said: "This is fantastic news. The work can't begin soon enough. Local residents have been telling the EA for years that more maintenance needs to be done on these local streams."

But the agency has still not ruled out a £100m flood relief channel from the Thames at Binsey to Sandford Lock.

The agency is also investigating the creation of four large water storage areas - large areas of farmland that would be allowed to flood - beside the Thames and Cherwell, north of Oxford.

Nick Hills, of the Oxford Flood Alliance, said: "We still need to see more of the detail. But I think we need to see a wider package than this. The serious pinch points at Redbridge, for example, are only alluded to."

6:56am Friday 16th May 2008

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