ALMOST half a million pounds has been awarded by

the Welsh Assembly Government for drainage

improvement works in Abergavenny.

Minister for Environment, Sustainability and

Housing, Jane Davidson, today announced the

£450,000 award of the money to Monmouthshire

County Council to protect properties in the Station

Road area of the town.

Work on the £530,000 scheme is now due to

start in September this year.

In their application for the grant money MCC

identified a history of flooding in the Station Road

area with some 14 residential and four commercial

properties either having been flooded or threatened in

events in 1984, 2000, 2006 and 2007.

Investigations have shown that the problem is

due to the lack of capacity and structural condition of

the existing drainage system.

The report predicts that if no action were taken

that the flooding situation would deteriorate and

estimates that the frequency of flooding would

increase to on average about once every two years. 

Ms Davidson said, "This is excellent news for

local residents and businesses who have suffered the

effects of flooding for many years."

MCC has obtained planning permission and land

drainage consent from the Environment Agency in

respect of its proposals and plans to start work in

September this year. The authority wants to increase

the capacity of the culvert system by laying a new

600mm diameter culvert and diverting into it the

majority of the flow from the Station Road culvert. The

new culvert which will discharge into the

streamcourse near Belmont Crescent.  In addition it is

proposed to improve the headwall and culvert

entrance arrangement to the east of the A465, provide

an additional 450 mm diameter culvert under the

A465 to connect to a new 600mm culvert.  

The scheme will involve laying approximately

220 metres of new culvert and is designed to cater for

extreme flood flows of a 1 in 200 year occurrence

without properties flooding.

The Welsh Assembly Government has made £5.8

million grant aid available this year to support Local

Authority flood and coastal risk capital schemes and

projects.