A RESTAURANT owner who has been running his business successfully for nearly 30 years has said he will be forced to close if his premises is hit by flooding once more.

Daraz Aziz, who runs The Valley Indian restaurant in Corbridge, said his “heartbeat rises” every time it rains, as a result of continuous flood damage he has encountered equating to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

A door at the back of Mr Aziz’s property leads out into an area which has an archway above it, belonging to Network Rail, which sits underneath the platform at Corbridge Railway Station.

“The water comes through the brick walls when there is heavy rain and comes in this property because there’s no drainage system in place,” he said.

“Most of the times we were flooded the water came through from that end and travelled into our property and damaged our property.”

Major flooding has occured in 2000, 2005, 2008, December 2015 and March 2019, and most recently, just last month.

But Mr Aziz said there has been many occasions between these dates where they have also been flooded, and following 2015 they have been unable to get any insurance.

He has been working with Network Rail and he is also calling on the government and local authority to look into issues which can prevent businesses in his position securing insurance.

He said: “Every time it rains now I am worried. It is at the point now where if I have any more floods I wouldn’t be able to continue – I would have to close.”

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “Network Rail engineers visited site last week and carried out an inspection of the area. Workers from Network Rail will visit the site again to carry out work to resolve the issue.”