More flooding misery expected as downpours continue

More flooding misery is expected on Friday as the torrential downpours which brought flooded roads and home evacuations continue.

The Met Office’s amber weather warning for heavy rain covering parts of Yorkshire and the Midlands is in place until 6am and communities are bracing themselves for more of the deluge which brought travel chaos on Thursday.

Thirty-five homes were evacuated as a precaution in Mansfield after a mudslide in the area while hundreds of people were kept inside Meadowhall Shopping centre near Sheffield due to gridlocked traffic outside.

Later on Thursday, South Yorkshire Police declared there were “significant issues” in Doncaster, with Bentley, Toll Bar and Scawthorpe the worst affected areas.

The force said: “The local authority are asking that people do not drive or leave their properties unless necessary.”

The weather has also caused train services to be cancelled and Northern Rail issued a “do not travel” warning to commuters using three routes, saying flooding had closed the lines between Sheffield and Gainsborough, Sheffield and Lincoln and Hebden Bridge and Manchester Victoria.

By 10.30pm on Thursday, the Environment Agency had issued 98 flood warnings and 117 flood alerts.

Nottinghamshire Police said officers were called to Bank End Close in Mansfield alongside the fire service and Mansfield District Council just before 5pm on Thursday following concerns for the safety of people living in the houses.

Some of the most dramatic scenes were in Sheffield and Rotherham where a number of roads were left impassable to traffic, cars stranded in floodwater and gridlock resulting on many routes.

A number of houses were evacuated after they were inundated in the village of Whiston, near Rotherham, and, in Sheffield, the council closed Millhouses Park, where a 14-year-old boy was swept to his death in the River Sheaf during the devastating floods in the city in 2007.

There was gridlock at the Meadowhall Shopping Centre, also flooded in 2007, after it cancelled its Christmas Live event which was expected to be attended by thousands of people on Thursday evening.

With many surrounding routes flooded and trams stopping short of the complex due to “heavy rain putting the Tinsley tram bridge at risk”, gridlock led to police advising shoppers and concert goers to stay in the building.

Concerns were also growing in the Calder valley as river levels began to rise.

Precautionary flood barriers were put in place in Mytholmroyd, which was badly hit in the 2015 Boxing Day floods.