MALVERN Hills District Council will be spending £9,500 on alleviating flooding in Drake Street, Welland.

The Council's Executive Board this week backed the improvement scheme, to which Severn Trent Water and Worcestershire County Council will be contributing £4,000 each.

Flooding is caused by a watercourse running alongside Drake Street, which is part of Marlbank Brook, draining off the eastern slope of British Camp.

Although the brook has been known to flood for years, during the 1990s complaints started to come in from affected householders.

The surface water flooding also flows into the local sewer, which runs parallel to the brook, causing polluted floodwater to affect nearby properties.

In March 1999, MHDC decided to take no action over the problem but, following more complaints and a meeting in July this year with householders and the parish council, it agreed to look into the flooding.

A consultant's report showed that resectioning part of the brook and enlarging an access bridge over it will help solve the problem.

The improvements will create extra capacity in the watercourse, allowing it to carry away floodwater and, therefore, reduce the risk of future flooding.

Tony Burford, head of MHDC's construction services, said: "It won't be a 100 per cent solution to the problem - nothing can be - but it will go a huge way towards making things better for the people down there.

"Unfortunately, we will not be able to start work until the spring, when the weather has settled down a bit, but there's nothing we can do about that.

"We still need to get approval from the Environment Agency but, since they have been working closely with us over this, I don't think that's going to be a problem."