The area suffered huge flooding during 1999 and 2000

Work on the much-needed �7.8m project has taken 18 months to complete after the towns of Norton and Malton suffered widespread flooding during 1999 and 2000.

Some of the work to turf over embankments and install special coping stones will take another couple of months to complete.

But residents are already feeling happier now their homes are protected from potential flooding.

Norton resident Kath Youngson said: "We're hoping they'll work, so barring a terrible rainstorm or a monsoon I think we should be OK."

The Environment Agency scheme includes a combination of hard defences, reinforced concrete walls with sheet metal cores and earth embankments.

Norton councillor Elizabeth Shields told BBC News Online: "I'm really delighted to know that everything has been finished.

"The people of Norton can now at last feel safe if there is further flooding of such magnitude, which I hope won't occur, but one never knows."

On his last visit to the project in March, Floods Minister Elliot Morley said: "We can't eliminate flooding, we can't control nature, but we can work together to reduce the risk."