UNDERGROUND defences are being installed in a bid to finally solve flooding problems which have dogged residents of a Royston estate.

Hertfordshire County Council is to begin an extensive works programme on the Burns Road estate next month.

Houses on the estate have twice been hit by flash floods in the past three years, and the measures being put in place should prevent similar situations occurring in the future.

Royston MP Oliver Heald has received a letter from the county council’s project manager Adrian Redrup, detailing the scheme.

Mr Heald said: “Having met victims of the flash flooding in the Burns Road area, I know the misery this has caused.

“I was pleased to learn from Mr Redrup that a major scheme is under way.

“Taken together with the fats, oils and greases initiative by Anglian Water and their increased monitoring of the pipes, these measures should go a long way towards bringing much-needed reassurance to residents.”

The council will be providing underground cellular storage and an attenuation basin into which excess rain water, which currently gathers at the junction of Chaucer Road and Burns Road, will be able to run.

In addition three new soakaways are being installed, along with bunding along the rear boundary of properties in Isherwood Close which have previously been affected by flooding.

In his letter Mr Redrup said: “These combined measures are designed to provide directed corridor for short, intensive, rains to a chain of storage/soakaways and hence prevent flooding to residential properties.”

The news will come as a welcome relief to people living in the Burns Road area, whose lives have been blighted by the effects of flooding in the last few years.

The extent of the flooding led to worried residents forming the Burns Road Estate Against Flooding pressure group in 2008 to press for action on the problem.