FLOOD-weary residents of Grange-over-Sands are considering paying a private contractor to keep water out of their homes.

The move comes after residents of Windermere Road realised Cumbria Fire Service had ruled that it was "beyond their resources" to routinely scramble fire crews to pump water away from their regularly flooded properties.

John Smith, chairman of the Windermere Road Flood Action Group, said residents had started negotiating with a farm contractor to provide an on-call pumping service because they felt they had no alternative.

He said he was alerted to an apparent change in the fire service's policy after they "hesitantly" sent an appliance to a major flood in 2000 but not to subsequent floods around Christmas 2003 and February 2004.

Last week, an officer at Kendal explained to Mr Smith that, in answer to calls regarding Windermere Road flooding, the service would dispatch an officer to assess the situation first and then decide whether to send a fire crew.

Alan Rawsthorne, divisional commander for South Lakeland and Barrow, confirmed to The Westmorland Gazette that the fire service had decided to change its approach "two or three years ago".

"The problem is the flooding down Windermere Road, it's in the bed of a stream. There's very little we can do about it. What appears to be the problem to us is the size of a culvert underneath the road into the ornamental pond. For year upon year the same problem occurred in that area. We took the view it's really time someone, somewhere, did something about it.

"We approached SLDC to point out what we saw as the problem and it was beyond our resources to do anything about it."

He added that even with limitless resources, the fire service felt they could do little to stop homes being flooded.

"We used to get called out in the very early stages to try and set pumps in to make a difference but then the water overcame our efforts. The other thing is the pumps we have are for fire fighting and built to deal with high pressure rather than high volume.

"Our overall policy is to help people where we can we just have to put our hands up and say we really can't help in this instance."

But Mr Smith said the fire service had "saved" householders from getting flooded many times since the big flood of 1981.

"It's a possibility out of those times it may not have flooded if they hadn't come. But at least once a year we would have flooded it they hadn't turned out."

Meanwhile, the Windermere Road group is continuing to pressure SLDC to do some flood prevention work. They say any contractors' bills for pumping flood water would be added to a £600,000 compensation claim submitted to the council in February for the inconvenience of flooding and the devaluation of their homes.

Chris Fidler, SLDC's assistant director for environment, said the claim was with the council's insurers who would determine whether the authority was liable.

He said money for a feasibility study into flood prevention measures has been set aside in the council's capital programme.