A flooding plan is needed for Llandudno

Nov 19 2009

I was called to St Andrews Avenue on Saturday morning by a resident stating they were all flooded.

On arrival I found the block of sheltered accommodation flats immediately opposite the Oval were being inundated by flood water.

The water had entered the ground floor of the flats from number 42 up to number 68.

I spoke to a number of the residents and they said they had called the emergency services.

After a short while the Fire Service arrived and immediately set up a pump to clear the surface water.

About 15 minutes later The County Council arrived with another pump and also set up to pump away the surface water.

The reason I am writing to you is to praise the professionalism and hard work of both of these groups.

Within 45 minutes of arriving they had managed to reduce the level of water so that it was no longer flowing into the flats, the firemen then took it upon themselves to help the elderly residents to sweep out the excess water from their flats and spent a few hours assisting in this way.

The whole incident brought out a great team spirit and a lot of camaraderie with residents from the upstairs flats helping those on the ground floor and a general sense of "never mind" lets just get on with it.

However, the situation should never have been allowed to develop.

These flats have flooded on a number of occasions in the past.

The residents have had many promises of solutions being put in place.

Obviously, they do not work.

A proper flood plan needs to be put in place in the very near future, both for the residents of St Andrews Avenue and Llandudno as a whole. The residents need a list of emergency team numbers so they can call before the flood water reaches their front doors rather than having to wait for the disaster to actually happen.

Welsh Water need to ensure that all their pumping stations around Llandudno are fully operational and can cope with these heavy downpours.

The provision of sandbags should be more easily accessible.

Conwy County Council must appoint a flood coordinator with the resources to tackle these problems.

On the whole I think we were lucky this time but we must not forget. The last great flood of Llandudno started off with the same problems.

Have we learned nothing ?

Councillor Garry Burchett

Llandudno