Wrexham Council responds to residents' concerns over flood response

The Leader reported on residents living in the Caia Park area who are calling on the council to do more to protect them from flooding.

Some people said homes were left "ruined" by flash flooding caused by torrential downpours on Saturday afternoon.

A house in Caia Park left damaged by flash flooding on Saturday. (Image: User generated content)

The council was blamed for blocked drains, which residents say played a significant factor in the flooding. 

Caia Park councillor, Carrie Harper, said: "The fire service responded quickly and they told residents that blocked drains were part of the problem. They managed to unblock one but three others remain blocked. This is something that urgently needs looking at.

“Residents also said they tried calling the council’s out-of-hours emergency number but were told it was an issue for Welsh Water. They also asked about sandbags but couldn’t get any: these may well have prevented flooding in one or two properties had they been available."

Where the water came up to at this property in Caia Park can be seen. (Image: User generated content)

On Monday, Wrexham Council responded to the concerns of residents.

A spokesperson said: "In preparation for the forecast weather, the Environment Streetscene Team internally reviewed and prepared in readiness for response. With seasonal stormy weather this can be difficult to predict and often impacts vary across the county borough. This weekend was no different.

"We made arrangements to quadruple our response teams in preparation and during Saturday afternoon between 3pm and 10pm we responded to over 130 separate incidents.

"These included various issues, but can be summarised as follows:

• 81 flooding incidents / sandbag support
• 15 drainage infrastructure manhole failures (mainly combined sewage system)
• 21 flooded roads
• 14 Road Traffic Collisions / fallen trees

"Many additional incidents were responded to only to find water dissipated prior to arrival at sites. The weather impacted different parts of the borough in different ways with many not seeing much disruption and others seeing significant disruption."

They continued: "In addition, we also saw damage to many buildings across the county borough with many private shops and businesses being overwhelmed by the rain and our own Bus Station concourse requiring closure on Saturday evening.

"In virtually all situations where water was the problem, the heavy rain overwhelmed drainage systems and in time water dissipated. Please be aware our drainage systems can never cope with the quantity of water that fell in such a short period as yesterday. We cannot ”build” ourselves out of this situation, it is climate change and risk increases. We can only firefight and assist with response."

Fooding in New Broughton on Saturday. (Image: Tracey Rowland Kaye)

Following a period of warmer drier weather over Saturday night and into Sunday, the council said its teams were again readying to respond only to see the forecast rain not develop into anything like significant conditions.

"Our leadership team with our on call supervisors are geared up as far as we can be for repeat events and possibly into next week," Wrexham Council said.

"As always we will continue to debrief after incidents and review our response, assess remedial actions were possible and also review our readiness and response levels.

"Please be assured that our team is always in a state of readiness and prepared to respond, as we try to manage a difficult and ever changing pattern of weather. Winter maintenance conditions continually stretch our teams, our Bad Weather Enhanced response for significant Met Office forecasts and named storms, and increasingly we see seasonal downpours testing our resolve. Whatever the conditions we will always make every endeavour to respond and assist."