A man has been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving after a tractor was filmed driving through a flooded high street during Storm Bert.
The 57-year-old’s arrest followed an incident in Tenbury Wells town centre, in Worcester, on Monday.
Video footage, widely shared on social media, caught the moment a tractor’s wake slammed into shops and homes after it was driven through the flooded street.
Locals say the waves smashed windows and ‘devastated’ businesses, which had already been ravaged by Storm Bert.
In a statement, Inspector Dave Wise, who leads the safer neighbourhood team in Tenbury Wells, said: ‘I’d like to thank everyone who brought this incident to our attention, and to the local community for their co-operation and support yesterday while we carried out initial enquiries.
‘I understand the upset and anger that the incident caused, and I hope that the arrest we made yesterday evening offers reassurance that we are actively investigating it.
‘Officers will continue to be out and about in Tenbury in the coming days to assist the local community and our partner agencies with recovery efforts following the flooding.’
West Mercia Police added the suspect had been released on bail while enquiries into the incident continue.
Locals were left livid following the incident and labelled the driver a ‘t***er’ for causing a torrent of brown water to drench businesses in the town.
Owners had valiantly fought to keep the waters out of their shops but saw their hard work wiped out in an instant, with one person saying Tenbury had been ‘bankrupted’.
The town was left submerged earlier when the nearby Kyre Brook rose and caused a wall to collapse amid Storm Bert which has devastated large parts of Britain.
The clip shows a green tractor come around a corner and motor down the middle of the town centre.
Wave after wave of filthy floodwater is seen to then smash against the buildings, reportedly causing doors and windows to break as the driver of the farm vehicle carries on bouncing down the street.
At one point the tractor starts to slow down outside a shop causing the water to slosh over the front of the building.
Retired Environment Agency area manager Dave Throup shared the footage on X and called the driver an ‘absolute t***er’.
‘Sends a 6ft bow wave through Tenbury shop windows,’ he said. ‘Locals understandably livid!’
Louise Preston, who owns the Pitter Potter pottery shop in the high street, said the wave created by the tractor broke the front window of her store, along with those of other shops.
She said: ‘This is not what the town needed, particularly not in the run-up to Christmas – which, at the pottery studio, is our busiest time.
‘Floods are part and parcel of where we live – we expect them. The fact that the breaching wall collapsed, that was a bit unexpected… But tractors driving through the middle of the flood was not really on anybody’s plan.’
The situation followed Storm Bert, which plunged Britain into flooding chaos last week, with five people being killed.
Brutal 70mph gusts and thundery showers ripped through the country over two days, leaving a path of devastation in their wake.