In Shrewsbury, Frankwell car park was covered with water, but residents said the state-of-the-art flood defences at the Welsh Bridge appeared to be working and they had escaped the floods so far. The Gay Meadow football pitch, home of Shrewsbury Town, has also missed the floods.A spokesman for the club saying that there are just a few pools of water on the pitch.

River levels at the Welsh Bridge were at 3.72m at 8am, with areas of the River Severn still under a flood warning. During the 2000 floods, the peak was 5.25m.

Fiona Russell, of Haughmond View, said that she had never seen so many cars get caught in the floods as there were at Frankwell car park last night.

A spokeswoman for the Environment Agency said officers had decided that the low-level barriers were not going to go up any higher by the Welsh Bridge.

“At the moment we are peaking now and we are expecting it to stay there for a number of hours and slowly drop off,” she said.

“We are keeping a close eye on it, but hoping it will go down, perhaps by lunchtime.

“We don’t know yet about the barriers at Ironbridge.”

Bridgnorth and Ironbridge are both on flood watch and people are advised to watch the levels.

North Shropshire divisional surveyor Bob Ellis said there was some flooding in Melverley and some of the local roads in the area were shut.

He said: “We have some general flooding in this area and it’s low lying.

“Residents in the area know about it and it’s a seasonal thing.

“We are obviously keeping an eye on things as there’s more rain due today and we would ask people to take extra care on the roads.”

Flood water across Powys was subsiding today with just three roads still remaining under water this morning after yesterday’s widespread problems.

The main A483 Oswestry to Welshpool route was passable from about 7am though the A490 link between Welshpool and Montgomery remained closed to motorists.

A Powys County Council spokesman said that also still closed was the B4393 at Newbridge, near Four Crosses, and the minor road between Caerhowel and Forden. But he warned that it was likely river levels would rise again today as the volume of rain that fell overnight found its way into the streams and river.

Click on to see Shropshire submerged 2006