A LARGE-SCALE pumping system to fight floods in Pound Lane, Marlow, will cost £430,000 to put in and will not be ready for this winter's rain.

So if floods reappear, tankers will be back again, pumping away water at 12,000 gallons a day.

However, elevated walkways may be built to make sure people in Pound Lane can at least walk dry shod.

This was something people complained about during last year's floods – the worst in living memory when water was not cleared from Pound Lane until June.

Floods are likely because the water table in the south of the county is already at a level that would be high even for the winter time.

Rodney Royston, Buckinghamshire County Council's cabinet member for roads, said the new scheme for Pound Lane suggested by council consultants Hyder was expensive.

He said: "It may work, but when can we do it?

"It has to be designed and money allocated. Even if we have found a possible solution there is no way we shall get it done this year, even with all the money in the world.

"And we have to think twice about spending that kind of money."

He said the council had already spent an extra £1 million on flood defence and flood prevention as a result of last winter's rain but did not qualify for any compensation from the government because the amount was below the threshold.

Mike Knight, the council's Wycombe area manager, wants to make sure the long-term plan works and is on the shelf ready to go if the political decision is taken early in the new year to spend the money.

It involves sinking caissons, which are huge circular concrete constructions, into the ground. They will contain pumps to remove the water and deposit it in the Thames floodplain.

Cllr Maurice Oram, Mayor of Marlow, said he accepted that it was not possible to get the expensive scheme in place in time for this winter. But he said it was more important to show that it would work, before spending money on it

"It has to be done properly and achieve its objective," he said.

For this year, Mr Knight, said: "We shall have the tankers in again. But I want to get some form of permanent pedestrian walkway, because local people had to go through people's gardens."

Working out where it would be built is not simple, because where the existing footway is continuous is where floods would be deepest, while on the other side of the road there are road junctions.

Buckinghamshire County Council does not not qualify for money from the government's major flood relief scheme, the Bellwin scheme. Neither did it qualify for any of another £12 million the government made available after this year's floods, because the threshold was £1.2 million.

Officers have also bid for £1 million more in transport supplementary grant, but they will not know about that until December.

Mr Knight said: "If we get £1 million, it will all be earmarked for flooding and I shall get my £400,000 out of that."