GREAT Harwood had to mop up after floods left a number of shops and a pub under water for several hours.

Storms on Sunday left an area of the town near the Plough pub and the Co-op, Queen Street, worst affected.

Residents today said water had flooded off side streets and down the hill on to Queen Street where it pooled at the bottom.

Police were called and put diversions in place while the water drained away.

Stuart Smith, chair of the Great Harwood Business Forum and local resident, said: "It was absolutely throwing it down.

"It's the inability of the drains to take it when it's really coming down."

Maureen Smith, landlady of the Plough, said a number of shops on Queen Street were affected, with several inches of water reported inside the premises.

She said: "We were cut off and nobody could get here.

"It was like a river down the street and our garden was flooded. The water came in at the front door but just at the very front."

Sunday night's storms also brought problems at the Great Harwood police station in Blackburn Road.

Phone lines at the building were down overnight and did not come back on until 11am yesterday morning.

PC Rob Flanagan said: "The problems have now been fixed but it did mean that the normal phone lines were down for a period."

The lines at the station are non-emergency only.

In the past areas in East Lancashire notorious for flooding have included Ribchester, Wordsworth Close in Oswaldtwistle, Brownhill in Blackburn and Spring Street, Rishton.

But firefighters across East Lancashire today reported no emergency call-outs to incidents of flooding in those locations.

The Environment Agency today had no flood warnings in place for East Lancashire.