Meeting over River Wye flooding issues 'less than positive'
A 'less than positive' meeting aimed at reducing the effects of flooding in and around Builth Wells has left local councillors fearing that authorities have little or no plan to combat the issue.
Builth mayor Gwyn Davies and fellow town councillor Mark Hammond held a meeting in Llanelwedd last month, arranged by Mid Wales Member of the Senedd Jane Dodds.
Representatives from National Resources Wales (NRW) were present, as well as members of the Llanelwedd community and businesses from the other side of the River Wye who have been most affected by the Wye's flooding in recent years.
Councillor Davies took to BBC Radio Wales on December 9 last year to criticise NRW following severe damage caused by the flooding Storm Darragh ushered in that month.
Flooding has long been an issue in the town and the surrounding community of Llanelwedd – with businesses and homes hit severely in recent years.
'To be honest I don't have a high opinion of them,' Cllr Davies told presenter Jason Mohamad in the aftermath of Storm Darragh, describing NRW.
Ms Dodds arranged the meeting on Tuesday, April 8, in order to discuss measures that NRW had undertaken on behalf of the Llanelwedd community and what future actions can be looked at in order to alleviate the flooding on both sides of the river.
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'Unfortunately, very little of a positive nature came out of the meeting,' said Cllr Hammond, in a post on the Builth Wells Town Council Facebook page.
'It would appear most of the measures that NRW had carried out in some individual houses in Llanelwedd had been less than successful.
'From a Builth perspective, it is easy to sum up what physical actions on the river NRW intend to do, in order to reduce the effects of flooding over the next five to six years or longer in a single word – nothing.
'The two representatives from NRW repeatedly informed those present that as a result of 'cost benefit/ratios', as well as it 'not being in the interest of Welsh tax payers', it was in effect not worth doing anything.
'NRW seem to ignore the fact that those affected by the flooding are Welsh taxpayers.
'It became clear that the modelling system NRW had been using was 15 years out of date.
'We were told that a new modelling system was going to be designed, but this would take 18 months. There would be an additional few years of actually modelling the issues and then going through yet more procedures.'
Cllr Hammond added: 'The last time the river was dredged was back in 1998, which significantly impacted on the flooding situation.
'Lamentably, there has been no NRW action since and as we all know the flooding over recent years has increased.
'We were informed that dredging/de-shoaling is not looked upon with favour, despite the fact this method is proven to increase the river's capacity and helps reduce the risk of flooding during periods of high water.'
Gavin Jones, projects and programme delivery manager for Natural Resources Wales, said an update to the modelling of the River Wye and its effects on Llanelwedd residents is not expected to be completed until 2027.
'The conversation was focussed on Llanelwedd and did not meaningfully discuss flood risk to Builth Wells,' he said.
'We discussed further work to provide flood resilience measures to residential properties, which is planned to be delivered by June.
'We heard that the community is keen to better understand their flood risk and we're awaiting an update to the modelling of the River Wye, which we expect to be completed by 2027.
'The community also raised their concerns about a build-up of sediment and gravel in the river, and their desire for it to be removed (dredged).
'We advised that it can be unsustainable to manage flood risk this way and we would require evidence from the updated river model to demonstrate the flood risk management benefits that such a measure would achieve.'
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