COUNCILLORS at Bedale are making another attempt to confront the forces of nature on a local waterway.

Reeds and overhanging trees have become so rampant on Bedale Beck, between the harbour and the bridge carrying the A684, that it has been described locally as resembling the Amazon jungle.

Erosion of the bank, posing a potential threat to a footpath in some places, has also been discussed with the Environment Agency by a working party of councillors.

They have been assured by the agency that the condition of the beck does not pose a flood risk, but clearance work should be done as soon as possible.

Ten years ago the council employed young offenders from Northallerton, using a boat, to dig out reeds, but the exercise proved only partly successful. In 1996 it was suggested that selective weedkiller should be tried, but the idea was never implemented.

Town councillors recently walked downstream between the harbour and the bridge with an Environment Agency representative who repeated earlier advice by the agency that it would become involved only if the water flow was being impeded.

He concluded that the beck was becoming overgrown to the extent that it could hold back flows. Emergency work was not needed, but temporary clearance should be done this winter. Silting up was leading to erosion of the river bank.

Now the town council is seeking prices from local companies for work to stabilise the bank by planting willow trees, cutting back existing willows and removing some of the reeds.

Coun John Weighell, the mayor, said part of the path could disappear if remedial work was left much longer. "The agency will only act in terms of flood protection and not on amenity grounds, and it has said there is no risk of flooding. We look on the beck as an amenity and the agency looks on it as a drainage channel.

"It has been very difficult to clean out reeds because on the Bedale side it is almost impossible to get in the right machinery.

"If we can get quotations we hope to get some work done fairly quickly.