FED-UP villagers are calling for measures to be taken to ensure their community is protected from further flooding.

The village of Neasham, near Darlington, has been hit by two serious floods in the past five years. The first, in 1995, led to dozens of people being evacuated from their homes and resulted in a £465,000 flood scheme being introduced to beef up the banks along the River Tees.

But the defences proved meaningless last month when Kent Beck overflowed and flooded the village.

At a meeting of Neasham Parish Council on Monday night, villagers demanded to know why steps were not taken to also stop the beck from overflowing.

Peter Holmes, from the Environment Agency, said the flood at Kent Beck was a one in 60 year occurrence and that there had been no warning about the weather from the Met Office.

He said the problem occurred because the water in Kent Beck had no where else to go. But one resident said: "It's no point in having a flood defence scheme if the village is going to be flooded by a beck."

Parish councillor Peter Foster said: "I work at Teesside Airport and we knew there was going to be three or four days of quite wet weather."

Craig McGarvey, from the Environment Agency, said the agency had no hidden agenda. He said: "Land next to rivers will flood and what we have to do is look at where it is taking place and convince the MAFF and the Treasury that there is a case to be made for flood defences."

The parish council was told that the Environment Agency is looking at three possible options for solving the problem.

The first involves raising the defence level at Kent Beck, the second is increasing the storage capacity in the Kent Beck catchment area and the third is pumping water from Kent Beck into the River Tees.