WARNINGS about the serious flood risk to Oxford and damage to property were made more than 30 years ago, forgotten documents reveal.

They have been passed to us and show that the city council's chief architect called for a detailed study on flood risk - a study that was never carried out by the council or the Thames Conservancy (the forerunner of the Environment Agency).

In his report to the council planning committee in February 1974, Douglas Murray warned that overdevelopment on the River Thames flood plain had caused a serious flood risk in Oxford and called for an investigation to find out what could be done to avoid problems.

However, he warned that remedial work could be expensive and suggested that it "may even be cheaper to let flood damage happen and then repair it, rather than to engage in massive works of prevention".

There have now been three serious flooding alerts in the city since 2000.

John Mastroddi, 58, who discovered the documents said: "We are at least 20 to 30 years behind where we should be."

Mr Mastroddi, a builder who lives in Kennington Road, Kennington, added: "The council and the conservancy were warned by their own engineers and they chose to ignore them. Everything appears to be so obvious and we can't understand why the study wasn't done.

"It all seems to come back to the financial argument that it's cheaper to do nothing and let the flooding happen rather than build the defences. It's only because we have had three floods in the past seven years that more pressure has been put on to do something."

Nick Hills, 59, whose home in Earl Street, West Oxford, has been flooded three times since 2000, said: "It has been a litany of inaction."

The Environment Agency finally began work on a detailed flood risk management study for Oxford in 2002. The findings are expected in 2009-10 and could form the basis of a £100m flood relief scheme for the city.

An agency spokesman said: "This is the first detailed flood study to take place in Oxford. Unfortunately, as highlighted in the 1974 report, the scale of the problem means there are no quick fixes to a long-term sustainable solution.

"This is a big undertaking and we want to ensure that any scheme we put in place reduces the risk of flooding to as many people and their properties as possible. However, since the floods in July 2007, we are looking at ways of bringing aspects of this wider strategy forward in the next few years."

City council leader John Goddard said: "I'm not commenting on these documents. What matters now is that the Environment Agency complete its study as soon as possible and they get the money to put flood defences in place."

  • Flood barriers left badly damaged after vandals attacked them during the January floods have been successfully repaired.

More than a dozen homes in Kennington were left defenceless after four water-filled barriers protecting Kennington Road and Upper Road were slashed open early on January 20.

It was feared at the time that the barriers were beyond repair, but the Vale of White Horse District Council staff has mended them at a cost of £550.