Flood alert, November 14th 2025

This photograph, viewed from the Didsbury golf course side of the river and looking across and upstream, was taken on the morning of Saturday, November 15th, and shows the Mersey flowing at quite a high level. Twenty-four hours earlier, at a time of heavy rainfall and with the forecast for more of the same for the rest of the day and night, the Environment Agency contacted local establishments and gave warning that there was a possibility that they would operate the Flood Storage Basin at around 10.30pm that evening.

However, the river level peaked at the Didsbury Monitoring Station at 1.45am on Saturday, 15th November, at a height of 6.37 metres. The threshold for opening the floodgates is around 6.9 metres.

By the time this photograph was taken the level of the river had fallen by a few feet; at its maximum it would still have been several feet below the top of the bank.

As can be seen, work on the bank was still in progress.

A similar scenario occurred on Saturday, 20th September, when the EA again had issued warnings that the floodgates might be opened at 10.30pm that evening. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary.