A BOAT carrying out work for the Environment Agency on the River Yare sank and allegedly caused the death of a number of fish.

The 6ft-long Nuttalls vessel was at Cantley, near the Reedcutters pub, carrying out work on the Broadland Project to alleviate flood risk when it sank on Sunday.

It is understood that the high tides and winds on Sunday night caused the vessel to sink, spilling engine oil into the river.

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said: 'The boat that sank was a 6ft-long survey boat doing some work on the Broadland Project - other than some oil in the engine there were no other fuels on board.

'We had a report that there were 20 small dead fish but we did not see any.'

She added that it was likely that any dead fish they would have died from salt water washed into the river during the very high tide and high wind on Sunday night.

This is because the river is 40-metres wide at this point and any oil from the engine would have been dispersed across the top of the water and not caused a problem for fish.

Booms were put out by Nuttalls to collect some of the oil.

Nobody from Nuttalls was available to comment.