A FLAGSHIP £225,000 flood alleviation scheme buckled at its first challenge yesterday after surging water devastated homes and left angry residents to clean up the mess in Whitley.

The Chronicle was on the scene at Kingsley Close as furious neighbours waded through knee-deep water.

The flash-flooding has brought back terrifying memories of the 2007 floods, the outcome of which led to council signing off the alleviation work.

Claudette Samuels has lived in Kingsley Close for 36 years, and was livid as she watched her house come under threat again.

Mrs Samuels said: "We only started having these problems when the A33 was put in and these flood works earlier in the year were meant to stop this happening again but obviously haven't."

Sian Silman, 35, said: "I don't think you can print what I want to say. I am disgusted that the council's plans haven't had any effect. They said it wouldn't happen again and it has. There is water coming through my floorboards and all we have been given is some sandbags."

The council responded to calls at 1pm from Mrs Samuels and provided residents with sandbags and two yellow tankers arrived on the scene to pump out the water. They also distributed sandbags to other homes on the Swallowfield Drive estate but in a number of roads the rising water at timeslooked menacing but then subsided.

Mamadou Wone, 35, rents a house in Kingsley Close and these are the first floods he has experienced in Whitley.

Mr Wone said: "After all the work they did over the other side of the close I cannot believe it has happened. I will have to stay at a friend's house tonight."