Luddenden church set to find out when it can re-open after dramatic landslip forces its closure due to flooding

The dramatic incident saw the garden of the neighbouring vicarage collapse into Luddenden Brook, resulting in some flooding at the church, which is due to be inspected tomorrow (Saturday) to ascertain when it could re-open.

The collapse caused in a blockage to the water course that had diverted some of the river flow through a gap in the church wall, causing flooding to the undercroft.

Debbie Mills has been church warden for seven years and rushed to the scene when she was told what had happened.

"We don't know what caused it, I was alerted to it at quarter to seven last Thursday (December 29)," she said.

"I got a call from our verger to say that the wall had collapsed into the river and the church yard was flooding.

"Obviously it was still dark so nobody could see the extent of the damage, so I just got down there as quick as I could to see what had happened and how safe the church was.

"I made contact with the family who live in the vicarage to see if they were OK and they were.

"And then it was all hands, trying to get sandbags round the church to save the river going in the church, which it has done but only into where we'd have expected.

"The main body of the church is OK, it's dry, but the lower parts of the building, the boiler house, there was a couple of inches in there, and the undercroft, where we store things, water will have got in there.

"We haven't opened any of the doors as we didn't want to make more of a mess."

When asked what her reaction was when she saw the damage caused in daylight, Debbie, 61, who was baptised at the church, said: "Horrified, absolutely horrified.

"Thank god that nobody had been hurt.

"We just tried to deal with it as we could, as much as we could."

The church has been closed since the incident happened.

"We just don't know how stable things are, we didn't want to risk anything happening while it was open and people were in there," Debbie said.

"We've got someone coming on Saturday to have a look at the building and see how safe it is.

"I'm very hopeful it will be sooner rather than later but you never know with these things.

"There's an art group that meets there on a Monday and an exercise class, which have stopped because the building is shut to the public.

"Obviously there's always going to be a risk when you're situated right next to a brook.

"But we've been very lucky, apart from the 2015 floods that got in.

"It's just one of those unexpected things that you can't foresee."

Debbie said the local community rallied round to offer their support after the incident occured.

"People were turning up to see if there was anything they could do to help," she said.

"As usual, Luddenden village comes together in a crisis and they're very helpful.

"Parishioners have been great, we've let people know as best we can.

"Elderly members of our congregation who aren't on Facebook, we've rung round to tell them 'please don't come to church, it's not open'."

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency told the Courier: “Following reports of flooding caused by a landslip in Luddenden, our officers attended the site to investigate and took immediate action to prevent any further flood risk and protect the church and its grounds.

"This involved blocking gaps in the church wall and removing trees and vegetation from the riverbank to lower water levels and improve river flow.

“We will continue to work with the land owner to advise what actions they need to take to monitor any flood risk.”

The Environment Agency say they will continue to liaise with the land owner to advise what actions they need to take and carry out periodic checks to ensure flood risk has not increased as result of the slippage or any response work.