TENBURY Town Council will be out in force to find out what people want to do about starting work on flood defences.

A team from the Council will be on the Burgage to meet residents at the Apple Fest on Saturday (October 3).

They will be keen to find out if people want them to press ahead with trying to get the town defended against the kind of floods that devastated the town eight years ago.

It will be the start of a process that will also include a series of events in the Pump Rooms during the autumn to explain the options.

“We intend to give people the opportunity to comment on the way forward in pursuing permanent flood defences for the town,” said Mark Willis, Mayor of Tenbury.

“Since 2007 we have been lucky on a number of occasions to have escaped major disruption due to flooding. Until the issue of permanent flood defences is resolved it is imperative that residents and businesses at risk take every possible action to minimise the danger from flooding to their properties.

“In the next few weeks we will be advertising a number of forthcoming presentations at the Pump Rooms to further discuss the Neighbourhood Plan and the issues regarding flooding.”

Tenbury MP Harriett Baldwin, who a year ago was behind a public meeting at The Regal to discuss flood defences that involved the Environment Agency, has pledged her continuing support for doing all that she can to get a scheme going.

“I have long campaigned for permanent flood defences for the town and have hosted meetings to discuss this matter on several occasions over the last four years including arranging a public event in the Regal Theatre exactly a year ago,” said Harriett Baldwin.

“I support the principle of breaking the scheme down into manageable projects and I have recently liaised with both Tesco and the Environment Agency to see what can be done to speed this process along.

“We all agree that the town wants to see this matter moved forward and I will offer whatever assistance is required to help make this project a reality.”

One of the things that the MP has been doing is talking to Tesco ahead of their start on the supermarket site to see if the supermarket chain will take a lead in building a defence to defend the site.

A major problem is the high cost of a complete full defence scheme has been calculated as in excess of £5 million and cannot be justified under Environment Agency rules.

This means that the work would need to be done as a series of different sections over an extended period of time. But this approach has its problems because protecting one part of the town could have the effect of increasing the risk in another area.

There have also been concerns that an effective flood defence project would involve construction a large wall that could damage the look of the historic market town.

Environment Agency engineers have calculated that lowering the bed of the River Teme would not work.