AN INQUIRY into the severe flooding which hit Woodford Green earlier this year has revealed that a council hotline for worried residents did not work properly.

The report, produced by Redbridge Council itself, said its response to flooding from the River Roding in February had been successful in minimising damage to homes, and that co-operation between the authorities and emergency services had been ‘excellent’.

But it has also emerged that the authority's communication centre was unable to cope with the number of calls from worried residents during the night of Monday, February 9.

The report said: "After the flood warning had been issued, callers were receiving neither an engaged tone, nor a recorded message.

"Rather they just got a continuous ringing tone."

A short-term solution was found for the following day and the council have been working to fix the fault.

The finding came as not surprise to people living in Chigwell Road, Woodford Green - which was the area hardest hit by the flooding.

Resident, Ashraf Elkholy, tried calling the hotline on several occasions, but failed to get through.

He said: "I tried to call the hotline myself, but it didn't work.

"We were all very disappointed by the lack of help the council gave us at the time.

"They just advised us to go to B&Q and buy our own sandbags.

"We don't feel that we can rely on the council at all."

These views were echoed by his neighbour, Pat Kirby, who said he had never even heard of the hotline.

He said: "This is news to me. I didn't even know it existed in the first place.

"I saw council workers simply dumping hundreds of sandbags by the side of the river after they'd told us to go and get our own from B&Q.

"That says it all about Redbridge Council as far as I'm concerned."

The report also found that the Environment Agency's flood warning system was flawed, as it offered ‘blanket’ advice for large sections of the river, and could have been more localised.

The agency has since promised to introduce a more "sectored" approach for warnings along the river from this September onwards.

The report also reveals the total cost of the council's anti-flooding operation was £6,000, which was spent mostly on street cleaning, transport and staff costs.

The flooding, which hit dozens of homes along the banks of the river in Woodford Green, South Woodford and Cranbrook, was thought to have been caused mainly by a combination of melting ice from an earlier snowstorm, coupled with excess rain.