RESIDENTS left devastated by the Boxing Day floods expressed their anger to town hall chiefs at tonight's meeting of Radcliffe Township Forum.

In a packed meeting at Radcliffe Civic Suite, dozens of people whose homes and businesses have been destroyed took council leader Cllr Mike Connolly and chief executive Mike Owen to task.

During an hour-long debate, which was brought forward to the start of the meeting because of the public demand, the pair took questions on the council's response to the floods and interactions with other agencies, including the Environment Agency and United Utilities.

The council will be holding a meeting at Bury Town Hall later this month, at which a number of other bodies will be represented, specifically to address the issues surrounding the floods.

Mr Owen said: "I'm not an expert in these matters, and we will be holding a meeting later in January where the Environment Agency, United Utilities, and others will be present.

"We have worked incredibly hard with them and they will be giving answers.

"Our first priority is the clean-up, which we are trying to get done as fast as we can, and to get the £500 payments out to people as quickly as we can.

"Then there is the issue of how we stop this happening again. We will be talking to the Environment Agency about their plans for Radcliffe, in particular."

Plans to cut £11.6 million from the council's yearly budget were also discussed at the meeting.

There will be a full report on the township forum in this Thursday's Radcliffe Times.