County roads hit by flooding

Herefordshire Council's highways staff and contracting partners Amey worked around the clock over the weekend to deal with major problems caused to the county's roads by heavy rains over the weekend.

Some unclassified roads were badly damaged by the heavy rains with surfaces being completely stripped off and some roads had to be closed due to landslides.

The surface on the U71230 at Lewstone, near Whitchurch, was completely lifted by the heavy rain and a landslip closed the U71232 at Doward.

A team from Amey removed 300 tonnes of spillage from the landslide at the Doward on Saturday morning and the road was re-opened the same afternoon.

Mark Thomas, service director for Amey, said: "Our staff delivered more than 3,000 sandbags throughout the county, responded to calls from the public, placed flood advisory signs, road closures, cleared fallen trees, silt and spoil on the roads. It was a superb effort from everyone involved and kept disruption to the public at a minimum."

Meanwhile, Hereford's new flood defences at Belmont have passed their first major test by holding firm when the River Wye rose to 5.1m during the weekend's floods - the highest the river has been for eight years.

At that level the Belmont roundabout would normally have flooded, causing severe disruption to the city.

Councillor Brian Wilcox, Herefordshire Council's cabinet member for highways and transportation, said: "The heavy rains have caused problems on many roads in the county with landslips and the surfaces on some minor roads have been completely lifted.

"I would like to thank all of the staff who have worked so hard to reduce the impact on motorists but would still urge anyone driving to take extra care and not attempt to travel on roads which have been closed.

"Having secured £2million for the Belmont Flood Defence scheme through planning gain, I am delighted it has passed this first major test and kept the city free of floodwater.

"We are now busy assessing the extent of the damage to the county's roads and we will then come up with a programme of works to repair them," he added.

Roads still closed are:

A466 Welsh Newton, Monmouth - closed due to major landslide
Haywood Lane, Marden - closed
Prospect Hill, Peterchurch - closed due to landslide