Councillors have blamed each other for delays in tackling flooding on a Stoke-on-Trent road.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council is set to spend £60,000 carrying out flood mitigation works on Baddeley Green Lane following years of problems, with the scheme set to start in March.

But opposition Conservative councillor Dave Evans, who represents Baddeley, Milton and Norton, said the work should have been carried out earlier in 2025, to save residents from 'another winter of flooding'.

Councillor Finlay-Gordon-McCusker, cabinet member for transport, infrastructure and regeneration at the Labour-run authority, hit back and placed the blame on previous Conservative-run administrations for the time taken to address the problem.

The two councillors clashed on the issue at a meeting of the full council.

Cllr Evans said: "The flooding on Baddeley Green Lane has been a consistent problem since 2016. It's been raised with officers for a very long time. I was very pleased to see a scheme included in the highways programme.

"But why has it been left until the end of the financial year, subjecting residents to another winter of flooding?

"Bearing in mind that it is a decision of the cabinet, don't you think that the residents, who will have another winter of flooding inflicted on them, are due some compensation from the council?"

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Cllr Gordon-McCusker said cabinet members had worked with officers to ensure the scheme is 'properly scoped, funded and programmed' and insisted it would be proceeding within the timeframe agreed.

He said: "This was left for eight long years when the Conservatives ran the council and did nothing.

"This council believes in doing things the right way. We will ensure the plans are properly designed, implemented once, delivered once for a long-term solution, and not just slogans."

Cllr Gordon-McCusker said the scheme would involve detailed ground investigations, drainage connectivity assessments, CCTV surveys and hydraulic modelling, to ensure the work was carried out correctly.

He explained that if the preliminary work was not done there would be a risk of the mitigation measures failing after a few years.