THE bodies that oversee the town’s drainage network believe that the combined drainage and sewer system struggled to cope with the volume of water that deluged Ross-on-Wye last week.

During the early hours of Sunday, September 8, the area suffered a large deluge of storm water cascading through the underground network of pipes, forcing it to bubble up in Brookend Street and flood the immediate area.

This was the second flooding to blight Ross town centre in four months.

A Herefordshire Council spokesperson said: “Our partners, Balfour Beatty Living Places cleared all gullies and drains in this location from top to bottom, including the drains in Brookend and Broad Street, following the first flooding incident. 

“We believe the Welsh Water combined sewer system struggled to cope with the recent volume of water and overflowed, in turn meaning our gullies were not able to transport any excess water.

“We are aware that this is the second significant flooding event in Ross in four months, and we are in discussion with Welsh Water to determine how the resilience of their infrastructure can be improved.

“It is inevitable that there will be debris in the gullies after a flooding event and our crews are already working to clear the gullies in Ross on Brookend Street.”

Ross Town Council has just obtained a map of all the gulleys and drains in the town centre and following the recent flooding, Cllr Ed O’Driscoll explained that he had been speaking with various bodies about the recent flooding and added: “Everybody generally believes that following all the recent works to the network, we are at least back in the situation where we were a year ago in how the system is coping.

“However, the big problem is not the condition of the pipes, but the whole scenario.

“We are waiting on a report which will result in a meeting with all relevant bodies to devise a way forward.

“The problem is that in completely refurbishing the network of sewer and drainage pipes, you’d be looking at closing Ross town centre for months, if not years.

“This would effectively close Ross-on-Wye, just as Monmouth has been for the past two years. We need to take a holistic approach to the problem, especially if the town is going to have to incorporate a substantial amount of new housing.”