Firms were left counting the cost of the 2015 Boxing Day floods – many taking months to get back on their feet.

Steve Mynott, of Huddersfield Auctions, based in the old Atkinson’s mill off Colne Bridge Road, Colnebridge, said: “I had a bit of a warning with a text message to say the water was up to the steel doors. I shot down and had started salvaging some stuff that was on the floor when the water came in like a tsunami wave. In the space of 20 minutes it was knee-high.

“Family and friends rallied round and we had a sale two weeks later. We got a clean-up grant from Kirklees of about £2,000.”

The premises at Colne Bridge Works are now protected by 20 one-ton sandbags at the point where the river breached.

The scene of the 2015 Boxing Day floods at BB Plastics in Lowlands Road, Mirfield.

Bosses at BB Plastics have spent over £100,000 on flood defences after the firm’s premises in Lowlands Road, Mirfield, were left under 3ft of water. The measures include a new wall running more than 100 metres along the length of the site alongside the River Calder.

General manager Mick Steer said the company, the UK’s biggest manufacturer of unbreakable plastic glasses lost three months of production while it replaced specialist machinery ruined in the floods, but that it took eight months to replace all its machines.

“Everyone has been working flat out over the whole year and quite a few of us have not had holidays or days off, but we are up and running.”

The firm, which employs more than 50 people, submitted a £4 million insurance claim.

At Holme Bank Mills in Station Street, Mirfield. Graham Ervine, who runs Design Contract Flooring and Mirfield Mill Carpets at the site, said the floods had cost him £17,000 in lost stock.

“We have incorporated the businesses into one warehouse where we have more of a chance of defending against the floods if they return like last year,” he said.

“We are speaking to Kirklees Council regarding flood defences for the doors. As far as ‘bouncing back’ goes, we have put our heads down and grafted vary hard to get back on track.”

The Ship Inn in Steanard Lane, Mirfield, and The Old Mill at Wakefield Road, Brighouse, were shut down by the floods.

The Ship cancelled Christmas Day lunch for 140 people and was closed for five months. It needed a refit costing almost £1 million and floodgates have been installed.

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The Old Mill was 6ft deep in water and lost £10,000 of food and drink and had to spend £3,000 to re-stock its fridges and larders. It re-opened on January 4.

General manager Warren Brazier said: “I wasn’t working here at the time of the flood but it’s mentioned by someone almost every day.”

Elsewhere, more than 600 sofas had to be scrapped when floodwater inundated the warehouse at online retailer Furniture Choice at Bankfield Business Park in Mirfield. Director Tom Obbard said: “All the affected stock had to go to landfill in the end.”

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