Floods in Bentley near Ipswich ruin bridesmaid dresses

Abi and her fiancé Joshua Minter's home in Bentley, on the Shotley peninsula, was flooded on Sunday. 

The pair were out enjoying Mr Minter's birthday when they got a call from their neighbour telling them that their driveway was underwater. 

Capel Road in Bentley flooded (Image: Mark Slater)

Abi said the drain at the bottom of their driveway was bubbling up and water then started to flood her driveway and then her house. 

She added: "It was gushing towards the house.

"When my mum opened our living room door she found that the water had got into the house and was all in the kitchen and utility room. 

"They were all completely flooded."

The kitchen was underwater (Image: Joshua Minter)

Abi said that someone from Cadent did come and give them some sandbags to protect the house – but she said the damage to her home was already done.

In response, Cadent said it would help replace the dresses so that Abi and her fiancé can prepare for their big day.

"My laminate flooring is completely ruined," Abi said.

"All the kickboards in the kitchen are ruined, but luckily my next door neighbour is a firefighter so he isolated all my electrics. 

"The biggest thing that I am annoyed about is that it is our wedding in six months' time and I had five bridesmaid dresses in the utility room that were ready to go to a seamstress, but they are now soaked and ruined by the dirty water."

The bridesmaid dresses were damaged in the flood (Image: Joshua Minter)

An Anglian Water spokeswoman said: “We’re sorry that this customer’s property was flooded.

"This was caused by third party damage to our pipe in Bentley on Sunday. Our team has been out to help this customer with their clean up, and we’ll help put things right.

“Our engineers worked hard to keep everyone’s taps flowing using tankers while they fixed the pipe, and we completed the repair the same day.

"We’d like to thank our customers in Bentley for their patience while we got everything back to normal.”

A spokesman for Cadent said: “We were made aware of a water leak in Highfield, Bentley, by one of our contractors who had been working on a gas escape nearby.   

 “We immediately contacted Anglian Water who carried out emergency repairs, but we understand that a property did suffer some flood damage.   

“We have spoken to the resident and explained that the repair and clean-up will be dealt with directly by Anglian Water and that we will work closely with the water company to establish what caused the leak.  

“When our customer teams spoke to the resident this morning, she told us that bridesmaids dresses for her upcoming wedding had been damaged during the incident.

"The last thing that we would want is for her big day to be ruined, so we are working with her to get these replaced as a matter of urgency.”