£14 million refurbished Doncaster pumping station will provide extra flood protection to 1,700 homes

The £14 million scheme in Bentley is an investment in one of South Yorkshire’s most important flood defence assets and makes the area ‘more resilient to the impacts of climate change’.

The Environment Agency said the pumping station is used almost daily and not just during flood incidents.

Bentley experienced devastating flooding in 2007 when the pumping station flooded, making it inaccessible for Environment Agency incident response teams. This led to the decision to refurbish and upgrade it, to make it more resilient.

The area was also hit in 2019 as many parts of Doncaster were affected by flooding and hundreds of homes and businesses were damaged.

Refurbishing the existing pumping station, instead of constructing a new one, has saved the taxpayer £8 million and made 60 per cent carbon savings, EA bosses said.

The project was officially opened by the chair of the Environment Agency, Emma Howard Boyd.

She said: “At 80 years old, Bentley Ings Pumping Station is a great example of combining history with cutting edge engineering to prepare for rising climate shocks.

“The teams working on this scheme have reduced carbon emissions in construction and operations by 60 percent, made savings of £8 million and increased pumping capacity by 20 percent.

“Subsidence caused by 20th century coal mining means this station is used nearly every day even in dry weather so I hope this work will give people in Bentley and Doncaster a greater sense of security in the years to come.”

The refurbishment work was impacted by flooding in November 2019, so an additional £4 million was made available to repair storm damage to the pumping storm damage to the pumping station and provide further upgrades.

Environmental enhancements have also been made as part of the scheme through the planting over a kilometre of hedgerows, 60 trees and two hectares of diverse grass meadow.

The scheme is part of the Environment Agency’s previous six-year programme of capital flood defences, which has protected more than 314,000 homes since 2015.