Denbighshire County Council has announced it will fund a third of the cost of providing new flood defences for the Glasdir Estate in Ruthin.
At a Full Council meeting in Ruthin today (Tuesday), councillors were told that Taylor Wimpey was also providing a third of the cost and that a decision was awaited on whether the Welsh Government would be providing any funding.
The cost of the works is estimated to be £300,000.
In a written statement, Councillor David Smith, Cabinet Lead Member for Environment said the works were an urgent priority and that he was not prepared to wait for the full funding to be in place before works could begin.
Councillor Smith said:
“Dr Jean Venables’ Independent Review Report in to last year’s flooding at Glasdir recommended that flood protection at the estate should be improved by raising the height of the bund by around 1 metre.
“Since publication of the investigation report, officers have undertaken further work to understand the costs and timescales for implementing Dr Venables’ recommendation. This analysis suggests the cost of works to increase the height of the flood defence bund would be in the region of £300k and that it could be in place by March 2014.
“Following discussions with the Council, Taylor Wimpey, developers of the Glasdir Estate have made a public commitment to pay for one third of the improvement works. I also asked our section 151 officer to review our capital budgets and contingency reserves, and I am happy to confirm, following that review, the Council will match Taylor Wimpey’s commitment of a one third contribution.
“We have made a similar request of Welsh Government. We have yet to hear back from them, however, if they are also willing to contribute towards this much needed improvement. They have already made a commitment, through Natural Resources Wales, to improve defences in St Asaph for the benefit of local residents there. I would hope that they are able to join with us and Taylor Wimpey to do the same at Glasdir to put residents’ minds there at rest.
“We are now in the design stage for the works at Glasdir and we expect to be on site by December with the works completing in March 2014. I am concerned that we have not yet had confirmation of funding from Welsh Government but I am not prepared to allow this to delay the start of these works.
“I would rather Denbighshire County Council proceeds with these works at our financial risk and that we finalise the funding arrangements afterwards, than we expect residents to put their lives on hold for longer than is necessary while they wait for the defences to be raised”.
