Flood-prone stream in Worthen to be widened
Shropshire Council has vowed to widen a stream in a Shropshire village which has flooded a rural road twice this year.
Residents in Worthen have called for the authority to take action to remove silt from the brook that runs close to Millstream in the village. Heavy rain has caused the stream to break its banks twice already this year – in January and again in July – flooding the road.
Residents fear future bad weather could leave the village cut off.
Shropshire Councillor for Worthen, Heather Kidd said the stream had been making life a misery for residents.
She said: "This problem has bedevilled Worthen for a long time but this year has been particularly bad, with the road flooding twice.
"Progress has been pain-fully slow solving this problem, with many agencies dragging their heels and no-one willing to take decisive action."
Mrs Kidd invited Shropshire Councillor Mal Price, who has responsibility for flooding, to visit the area alongside the council's flood and water manager, David Edwards.
She said: "The key to solving the problem is to widen the stream enough to cope with flooding but not have any knock-on effect which would flood other properties either here or downstream.
"Interestingly local residents remember the stream being much wider in the 1970s – a time when flooding was unknown."
Following talks with affec-ted residents, Mr Price pro-mised to speed up the neces- sary permissions for work on the stream to go ahead He also agreed to look for funding from the Local Joint Committee.
Mrs Kidd, said: "Key to getting this sorted is getting proof of how the stream looked in the past before these floods started. I know many in the community are trying to find photos of the stream from before 1990.
"Between roads, pylons, wind turbines and floods, Worthen has suffered a lot over the past year and it's high time we got this issue sorted."
