A police chief who has been at the forefront of a near disaster in a Derbyshire town has said some residents who refused to leave their homes had put lives at serious risk.

About 400 mainly local people packed a school hall to discuss the damaged dam in Whaley Bridge which is still at risk of collapse.

Those who were evacuated from their homes were told on Sunday they would no longer be able to return to collect vital items. More than 1,500 residents were initially told by emergency services they would be allowed to briefly return home on Sunday to collect any necessary items, pets and medication they had left behind.

But during the meeting, deputy chief constable of Derbyshire police, Rachel Swann, said the decision was taken to stop people returning to their homes to pick up essentials because some residents went in and refused to leave.

Swann said she had received updated information that 31 people in 22 properties were refusing to leave, “which is really disappointing” and putting lives at risk.



She said: “If the dam fails people will die if they remain in the evacuation zone. We would have to go in and rescue them and they are putting the emergency services lives at risk. I would urge them to leave.”

Swann said in the worst case scenario, residents would not be able to return to their homes for up to seven days. She was, however, hopeful they would return by the weekend.

Derbyshire chief fire officer, Terry McDermott, told the meeting that specialist engineers have monitored the dam wall with lasers 24 hours a day.

He said: “There has been no significant deflection in the dam wall according to the feedback we’ve had so far, which gives us some reassurance.”

McDermott said the sluice channel around the reservoir was “coping well” with both the water being pumped out by 22 pumps and the inflow to the lake, which has been blocked off by Chinook drops.

Overnight, he said rescue teams had built a road around the reservoir so they could move the pumps from the north of the dam to the south. Ten rescue boats have also been deployed in the region in case the dam bursts, while divers had gone in placing steel tubes by hand directing the water into the channel.

More than 1,000 sandbags and 538 bags of aggregate had been dropped in the area with concrete being poured behind the sandbags to secure the damaged part of the dam. The current water level stands at 3.8 metres below its normal level.

Emergency services are working to reduce the level down to eight metres, leaving the reservoir 25% full. It is currently 56% full. Swann said they would not empty the reservoir completely due to the fish, mainly pike, in the lake.

During the meeting, evacuated residents questioned why the dam had failed and asked whether it had been properly maintained. Others raised concerns about their houses being burgled, with one man saying his house had been looted by opportunist thieves. However, Swann said the police had no reports of burglary in the area and that the force had deployed drones to watch over residents’ homes.

Just over six miles away in the town of Marple, on the outskirts of Stockport, the army has been deployed amid fears the River Goyt could overflow. Water from the Toddbrook reservoir is being released into local waterways, which is leading to an increased risk of flooding in nearby areas.

Greater Manchester police said there was the potential for the situation at the reservoir to affect Marple, but stressed there were no plans to evacuate the town and said advice was being given out as a precaution.

A further 55 homes in the Horwich End area of the town were cleared on Saturday evening, two days after 1,500 residents left.

Derbyshire police allowed one person from each of the 400 properties evacuated on Thursday to return for a 15-minute visit on Saturday to pick up pets and other essentials.

Barry Rudd, who is a volunteer for the Canal and River Trust, said it had been a tense night waiting to see whether the dam wall would give way flooding the area.

Rudd, who has kept almost 4,000 local residents updated on the Whaley Bridge Facebook group, was one of the first on the scene when the dam wall was breached.

He said: “There is a considerable amount of water that has been pumped out but they are expecting rain this evening so nobody can guess what is going to happen. There is still a 50% chance it might breach.

“It was tense. My van is laden with gear because we didn’t know what we would need if the dam burst and there was a rescue or clean-up operation. We are just waiting and waiting now.”