There are a large number of flooding sites in the ward, including some of the most high profile across the county; the water overwhelming the dovecotes at Mansel Lacy, the gloriously british sight of someone rowing across Bell Square in Weobley, and the shocking image of a skip, full of rubbish from one flood, careering down the river in Canon Pyon. Beyond these there are numerous other sites; some affecting housing, but also having a huge impact on emergency services, essential public services, roads, public amenities, tourism and more. This is all in the context of changing weather patterns, and road/land usage, which means we are seeing worse flooding than usual, and can't expect things to turn around for the better without intervention. In the menu to the left you can see many of the sites I'm getting looked at, and what we are doing.
I was gob-smacked to discover in late 2024 that the "flood team" at HCC was effectively just one person, supported by drainage engineers at Balfour Beatty. That's particularly worrying as when it floods, it typically floods everywhere, and so that single officer would be overwhelmed. I was successful in getting money approved both in our day to day budgets to increase the team, bringing more expertise from outside, to four; but also to get £2m into the capital budget so that we can start works on the projects that really need them - otherwise the risk was a lot of sucking teeth and waiting for funding from external bodies such as the Environment Agency.