The first stage in a £900,000 project to build flood defences in an area engulfed by river water 18 months ago has started this week.

Engineers from the Environment Agency are preparing land off Florist Street, Keighley, on the bank of the River Aire, from where the project will be spearheaded.

The scheme, which will involve heightening the flood barrier along the river at the rear of homes in Florist Street, is expected to take 18 months.

About 400 people were evacuated from their homes in November 2000 when the river Aire burst its banks and flooded the Stockbridge area.

Residents have since set up their own development group, being run from a converted terrace house in Aireworth Road.

Environment Agency drawings of the project, which also involves building a new clay barrier near where the river Worth flows into the Aire and a new concrete wall behind the Bridge Inn in Bradford Road, are on show at the development office.

Andrew Abbott, chairman of the Stockbridge Neighbourhood Development Group, said residents were generally pleased with the speed with which the agency had got on with the project. "We have been fast tracked because the floods in Stockbridge were the second worst in the country at the time," he said.

"Part of the work will be to increase the height of the steel barriers behind gardens in Florist Street by putting a concrete wall on top - between two and three foot high.

"On our side it will be faced in stone so it will be much better than the rusty pilings that we have now.

"There will be some disruption because they will have to work in the river and from our gardens, but everything will be made right." A perforated pipe was also to be laid under gardens to help take away water.

He said he was keeping in regular contract with the project manager, and residents could get information about the progress at the office.

An Environment Agency spokesman said preliminary work had started in Stockbridge on Monday.

"The whole scheme is expected to take about 18 weeks to complete so that flood defences are in place by the winter," she said.

She said she was unable to reveal the order in which the project would be completed, but some of the first work would involve replacing the emergency banking put up at the time of the flooding.