Victor Street Flood Alleviation Scheme

Scheme Background

Historical flooding issues associated with an unnamed ordinary watercourse conveying through Mountain Ash, as well as localised surface water flooding causing disruption along the highway at Victor Street, have impacted this area on several occasions.

During Storm Dennis, widespread flooding affected Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT), with 1,476 properties experiencing internal flooding. In the community of Mountain Ash, 44 homes and 23 businesses were flooded internally, and over 100 properties experienced external flooding.

The primary cause of the flooding within the Victor Street area during Storm Dennis was as a result of debris blocking the unnamed watercourse channels and associated culvert inlet, leading to exceedance flows conveying overland along the highway network and towards properties. Following the storm event, several sections of the Victor Street culvert network were found to be in poor condition, with structural defects present.

Mountain Ash is noted as an area of high surface water and ordinary watercourse flood risk based on Natural Resources Wales’s (NRW) Flood Risk Assessment Wales (FRAW) maps. The community of Mountain Ash is also identified as the 92nd most at risk community for ordinary watercourse and surface water flooding in Wales according to the Communities at Risk Register (CaRR) which was developed by NRW to provide an objective means of identifying risk and prioritising flood risk management activities at a Wales-wide, community level.

Proposed Scheme Objectives

• Reduce risk to life by reducing the number of people exposed to risk of flooding of significant depth and velocity.
• Reduce community disruption by reducing the amount of residential and commercial property exposed to flood risk.
• Result in no detriment to downstream receiving River/Watercourse
• Improve community resilience to flood events and climate change, promoting sustainability and wellbeing.
• Deliver a preferred option that works with natural processes and promotes green infrastructure.
• Enhance local biodiversity and support the resilience of ecosystem services.
• Improve the resilience of flood risk assets against climate change - Promoting accessibility and low maintenance requirements.
• Reduce the impact of climate change – mitigating the extent of the projects carbon footprint.
• Improve community wellbeing through the enhancement of local amenity.

Proposed Scheme Description

The Council proposes to carry out land drainage improvement works on an unnamed ordinary watercourse that originates west of Victor Street in Mountain Ash and conveys to its outfall within the River Cynon.

The location of these works will take place in and around Victor Street, Eva Street, Stream Street, High Street and Pryce Street within Mountain Ash.

The works are intended to structurally rehabilitate the culverted ordinary watercourse network via internal relining and patch repair methods. This will reduce the risk of structural failure to the existing ordinary watercourse culvert networks. These improvement works will reduce the risk of surface water and ordinary watercourse flooding in an area which is considered at high risk of flooding.

Environmental Impact Assessment (Land Drainage Improvement Works) Regulations 1999 Notice

The Council does not intend to prepare an environmental statement in respect of the proposed improvement works. With reference to Schedule 2 of the Environmental Impact Assessment (Land Drainage Improvement Works) Regulations 1999, the reasons for not intending to prepare an environment statement are that, considering the characteristics of the improvement works, the environmental sensitivity of geographical areas likely to be affected by the improvement works and the type and characteristics of the potential impact on the environment of the improvement works, it is considered that the proposed works will not have a significant effect on the environment. A notice for these works was served on the 25th July 2024. A copy of the notice can be viewed here.