A MAN had to be airlifted to safety on Monday afternoon as flood waters engulfed his Gunnislake home, writes Alan Gregory.

Chris Kent, 60, bought Lock Cottage, which is perched on a small island in the River Tamar, during last Christmas' floods. On Monday, he was taken unawares by the speed at which water levels were rising and called for help from his bedroom window.

The emergency services — fire crews, ambulance, police, the coastguard and the Environment Agency — were called at about 3pm.

But with water levels at a similar height to last year's Christmas floods and the high spring tide still to come at 7pm there was little they could do for him, said Callington fire chief Roger Denley.

'We got in there with a boat to make contact, but the flow was too fast for any small boat,' he said.

Fire service area commander Kevin Marshall said: 'We decided to get the helicopter in because the light was failing and the tide was still rising. He was reasonably safe up there and I couldn't risk the lives of fire fighters in a rescue.'

A Navy helicopter was dispatched from RNAS Culdrose. It picked up firefighter Martin Pascoe to help guide the crew to the cottage, from where Mr Kent was plucked out of his bedroom window.

Mr Marshall added; 'We don't know, but we suspect a lot of structural damage has been done to the property.'

Neighbours Andrew Avent and Liz Jones, who were keeping an anxious eye on the water levels, said the old lock-keeper, when he used to live in Lock Cottage, kept a dinghy with the rope passed through his bedroom window. It was tied to his iron bedstead in case he needed to get out. The previous owners used to move all their furniture upstairs every winter and had their Christmas tree suspended from the ceiling.

Also watching the water levels with his fingers crossed was Paul Gerry, of Rose Cottage.

'It's about two inches from the door at the moment. There's nothing at all we can do, we only got the sandbags an hour ago, but we managed to shift most of the furniture up on to the first floor,' he said. 'It was the same last Christmas, but then it receded quite quickly.'