Like hundreds of other residents and business owners in South Lakeland, the weekend of December 5 and 6, 2015 will leave an indelible mark in the memories of Martin and Janice Dickens.

The flooding caused by Storm Desmond at their fish and chip shop in Kendal was a devastating blow for the couple just two years after taking over the New Road business.

It took them seven months of hard work to re-build Frydays, but in July they were able to re-open the popular riverside chippy for the first time since the floods.

Thanks to new resilience measures installed as part of that rebuilding process the couple are at least confident that, if the flooding of last December is ever repeated, they won’t face the same scenario.

“We’ve had all sorts of things done, from putting in waterproof flooring to fitting a stainless steel kitchen and moving all the electrics higher’’ explained Martin.

“If we have anything like that again hopefully now we should be able to mop up, sanitise everywhere and get back open much quicker, without having to replace the lot.’’

Martin and Janice were able to pay for the extra resilience measures over and above the like-for-like repair costs covered by their insurance after applying to SLDC for a flood resilience grant.

Martin and Janice are urging anyone affected by December’s floods who hasn’t yet applied to find out more.

“I know some people have said it’s a complex process but to be honest we found it fairly straightforward’’ said Martin. “I filled out the forms, took advice about what things we should do and sent in quotes for the work and a few weeks later we heard it had been okayed.

“There are all sorts of hidden costs after something like this. We had to replace all our utensils and just about everything in here, so every bit of help we could get was welcome. Now we hope we are better protected if the worst should happen again.’’

Janice added: “It was a horrible, stressful time and it was all so overwhelming so I can understand if people haven’t wanted to think about filling out more forms, but we’d say to anyone in our position to definitely apply, it can really make a difference.’’