A £2.2m flood prevention scheme is set to better protect nearly 200 homes in Horwich.

The Environment Agency has agreed to fund the project which will mean 190 properties are to be at lower risk from flooding.

A bid was registered by Bolton Council with the agency in 2014 to develop an alleviation scheme  after previous incidents where homes were inundated with water.

As part of this £135,000 was released to look into how the flooding was caused and to look for solutions.

Some of that was used to gather culvert flow data to use in the verification of hydraulic computer models.

In a report to the executive cabinet member for highways and transport on capital expenditure, John Kelly, assistant director, gave an update on the progress of the scheme.

He said: "The preliminary work was completed in March 2020.

“To seek continued Environment Agency support, an outline business case was submitted to them in June 2020.

“The Environment Agency are now prepared to support the scheme to a value of £2.2m and the project will be developed further.”

The agency has previously outlined plans to lower the risk of flooding in Horwich in its River Douglas Catchment Flood Management Plan.

That report states: “There is a risk of flooding in the town from the River Douglas and its tributaries, Pearl Brook and Nellies Clough.”

The agency said ‘essential actions’ to achieve their policy included to ‘produce a prioritised list of structures for redesign or replacement’ and to work with the council and United Utilities over sewer and local surface water flooding.

They also resolved to complete a river model outline for Horwich (River Douglas, Pearl Brook and Jepson’s Clough) to reduce uncertainty of the current risk information from flood zones.

The report, said: “Our vision for this area is that we will continue with our existing flood risk management actions and we will monitor change in flood risk and take action as it is needed.

“This will involve targeted actions and may include extending the flood warning area to include properties at risk from Pearl Brook and Nellies Clough, improvements to drainage and sewer networks and additional or

improved defences.”

During the Boxing Day floods of 2015, 20 properties and an electricity sub station were flooded in Horwich from Pearl Brook and other sources.

Twelve were flooded from the river, six from the sewers and two from the ordinary watercourse.

Part of Chorley New Road Primary School built over a culverted section of Nellies Clough river flooded when the manhole in the school car park blew its cover.

Horwich previously experienced localised flooding from Pearl Brook in 1992.