DAYS of dredging work carried out by the Environment Agency in the River Kent was simply flushed away in heavy rain last Friday.

Two diggers spent much of last week dredging the river at Gooseholme in Kendal to help lower the chances of flooding.

Nearby residents, who were initially ‘very excited’ about the work being done, watched in dismay as the large piles of silt and rubble were carried away by the swollen river just four days later.

Michael Scott, who was visiting family in the town, said: “It’s a total fiasco. Why didn’t the trucks take the silt away?

“Anyone who knows this area knows it can rain at any time – it’s a complete waste of time and money. They’ve spent four days digging it up and most of it has just ended up back in the river.

“Why was it left so late and how much has this cost Kendal's residents? A huge amount of silt and rocks have now been deposited back down the river, making the situation even worse for those further downstream.”

Julian Brown, whose home overlooks the river at Sand Aire House, described the exercise as ‘a terrible waste of public money’.

“It was never going to last very long in a big pile in a wide stretch of the river,” he said.

“The flow of the water can be very powerful and it wants to sweep away anything in its path.”

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Another resident, Mark Lowther, likened the situation to a Carry On film.

Writing on social media, he said: “It just beggars belief that someone hasn't had the common sense to look at a very good weather forecasting site and realised that the dredging should have been fully removed from the river.

“A full weeks’ work and probably a fair amount of our money has just gone down the river.”

The diggers were removing gravel from 'key locations' where a survey showed that it would reduce the flood risk to people and properties.

The Environment Agency failed to respond to questions about the fact that silt and rubble had been washed away as the Gazette went to press.