THE Herefordshire village of Hampton Bishop has been cut off from the rest of the county for a number of days as the rivers Wye and Lugg have been peaking at record levels.

The Environment Agency has been in the area throughout the course of the day (Wednesday) as they have five pumps moving 1,000 litres of water a second each from the Lugg to the Wye.

Two severe flood warnings remain in place for Hampton Bishop, indicating a danger to life, two of only six currently in force in the UK.

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The Environment Agency said the warning is still in force because of flooding cutting off the area, despite the river Wye at Mordiford peaking at a record 5.5 metres at 12.30pm on Monday.

Local farmer Kier Rogers, who has been helping stranded people to and from their homes in Hampton Bishop since Monday, said when the Wye is high, water cannot escape the Lugg fast enough where the two rivers meet.

He added: "The only way to achieve continuous flow of the Lugg catchment area, the big floodplain we're all familiar with coming off the back of the Lugg flats, is actually a pumping station at Mordiford bridge.

"There are five Dutch-style pumps there at the moment pumping 1,000 litres per second, so that's a bit of progress.

"But equally the flood defence at the Lugg bank should have been raised after the 2007 floods, but it wasn't.

"Ideally, if that could be reviewed and upgraded to be one to two feet higher that would make a significant improvement."

Since the floods hit on Monday, Mr Rogers has been using his large 4x4, a Mercedes Unimog, to support villagers in any way he can, along with the parish council.

"I'm just helping out, I'm just the driver of a Unimog and that's all really," he added.

"I've been on the go, a couple of 11-hour days on Monday and Tuesday, but I've finished a bit earlier today.

"I've taken people to the hospital today, someone wants their thyroid tablets this evening. This morning the gas guy came out because the central heating had gone off for a disabled child in the village.

"It just goes on and on but it's good, I've got a high-clearance vehicle so I thought I'd deploy it, drive it and meet all the villagers over the last three days."