A MULTI-million pound scheme that should reduce the risk of flooding to hundreds of homes and businesses will finally get underway this summer.

But the cost of the Ripon project has risen to £14.4m from the £11.7m that was first predicted by the Environment Agency three years ago.

And rising costs in the construction industry together with inflation over that period are being blamed for the £2.7m difference.

The scheme includes a storage reservoir to hold back flood water upstream of Ripon, and the construction of walls and embankments in the city.

Work will begin next month to build an earth dam for the new reservoir at Birkby Nab on the River Laver, which will be approximately 400 metres long, up to 90 metres wide and nine metres high.

When full, it will hold around a million cubic metres of water - enough to fill 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Environment Agency project manager Paul Scaife said: "The city has a long history of flooding and plans for the scheme have been extremely complex.

"We have designed the scheme to manage flooding greater than that experienced in 2000, which means it will reduce the risk to more then £47m-worth of property and infrastructure in the city.

"We will start building work on the reservoir in August and we hope to finish the entire scheme by spring 2011."

In the city itself work will be carried out in four main areas - Borrage Lane, Fisher Green, North Bridge and Alma Weir.

The latter will be removed, the river bed lowered and the river monitoring station will be replaced with new equipment upstream.

The scheme should reduce the risk of flooding from the Rivers Ure, Laver and Skell, proving protection to 548 homes and 96 businesses across the city.

Over the last 12 months, Environment Agency officers have drawn up details for the different sections of the scheme, secured funding and gained approval to take the scheme to this point.

And the team will be talking to residents soon about the final designs of defences and how the work will affect them.

More information can be found at www.environment-agency.gov.uk/riponfas and residents with questions or comments can email riponfas@environment-agency.gov.uk