Northumberland A189 flash flooding due to 'perfect storm' of factors

People were forced to abandon their vehicles after heavy rain caused flash floods on the A189

A "perfect storm" of various factors led to unprecedented flash flooding of a major road, a council has said.

The A189 Spine Road between Blyth and Cramlington in Northumberland was shut on Tuesday after heavy rain caused people to abandon their vehicles.

Northumberland County Council said it was wrongly criticised for a lack of maintenance with the gullies.

The council said it was caused by a high spring tide in the River Blyth and months of wet weather.

Three inches (7.6cm) of rain fell in the area on Tuesday, which caused "horrendous" conditions on the A189, the authority explained.

Director of local services, Paul Jones, said it was a "perfect storm" of events which was "unprecedented in more than 30 years".

"We had extremely wet weather running into this week and it has been for a couple of months now, so all the ground in that river catchment is just absolutely saturated.

"Any water that lands on these fields just runs straight on to the highway network," Mr Jones added.

The council said the flooding was due to saturated ground and high spring tide in the River Blyth

He explained the floods were also connected with the high spring tide in the River Blyth.

Mr Jones said: "When the tide is high the outflows get backed up, so there was a massive amount of water going on to the roads with nowhere for it to go because the network was already backed up."

The council said workers blocked off some of the water and dug a ditch to try and release some of the flooding.

"These weather events are getting more frequent and we are undertaking work to see what we can do to prevent any occurrence and to make sure our resilient road network stays that way despite the weather," Mr Jones said.

Councillor Wayne Daley, who represents the Cramlington North ward, said people had accused the council of not cleaning the gullies.

"A few weeks before, the gullies had been cleaned. There was a whole series of factors which made that road susceptible to that volume of water," he explained.

Mark Swinburn, the county councillor for the Cramlington Village ward, added: "It is not through a lack of care and maintenance, it was so much rain. It was just one of those things."