A TEST of the county's flood sirens has revealed that seven out of the 57 dotted around the coast are currently out of action - a failure rate of nearly 12pc.

A TEST of the county's flood sirens has revealed that seven out of the 57 dotted around the coast are currently out of action - a failure rate of nearly 12pc.

County council engineers are now planning to visit each site where a siren has failed and assess the cost of either repairing or scrapping them.

The annual test, which took place earlier this month, saw sirens fail at Cley Lime Kiln, Weybourne, Great Yarmouth College, Oriel High, Bacton, Hemsby First School and Hunstanton South Beach.

Out of these the county council is planning to repair the sirens at Bacton, Hunstanton, Cley and Hemsby, which are amongst the 40 Norfolk County Council's cabinet voted to save earlier this year.

The vote to save the sirens, which are used to sound the alarm for an evacuation, was an about turn from an earlier plan to scrap them all after they were deemed no longer fit for purpose. The police said they would not use them and the Environment Agency said it preferred its own telephone based warning system.

The proposal will keep the 40 sirens in operation for the next three years but campaigners, who fought hard to reverse the original decision, are now calling for all those saved to be upgraded so they can continue to operate after 2014 when the analogue signal is switched off.

For more information about flooding and flood sirens or to register for the Environment Agency flood warnings call 0845 9881188 or visit www.environment-agency.gov.uk.