EXPERTS offering advice on flooding will be coming to Tenbury.

The Flood Advisory Service will be in the town centre to meet people and provide information about how to protect against flooding.

Experts will be on the Town Centre Car Park on Friday, June 24 between 10am and 5pm and again on Saturday, June 25 between 10am and 4pm.

The event is being sponsored by Malvern Hills District Council, Worcestershire County Council, West Mercia Police, the West Minster Resilience Forum and the Environment Agency.

Tenbury Town Council has continued to warn against the risk of flooding in the town and Mayor Mark Willis has said in the past that it is a case of when and not if there is a major flood.

The Flood Advisory Service offers free and independent advice.

However, while it is able to offer advice on how to limit the damage caused by a flood, this falls way short of full flood protection.

These mitigating measures include installing items such as flood gates and raising the height of plugs and electrical circuits inside a property.

But a flood prevention scheme would require major engineering work in the town and cost at least £5 million.

Tenbury was last hit by serious flooding in 2007 when public toilets in Market Street were washed away and many businesses were closed for many months.

However, one of the problems is that Environment Agency rules mean that the calculated benefit of a flood defence scheme does not justify the cost.

Options that have been considered include trying to see if money can be raised locally or some kind of partial scheme. However, this approach is difficult because it may result in solving a problem in one part of the town only to make it worse in another area.

Harriett Baldwin MP, whose West Worcestershire constituency includes Tenbury, has pledged to work to help secure funding for flood protection if people want it.

It is hoped that if Tesco eventually go-ahead with the promised supermarket on the old Auction Yard site they would contribute to flood defences.

However, one of the problems is that even if it could be afforded some people in Tenbury will be uneasy about a scheme that would involve solid flood walls that some people feel would spoil the town.

Experts from the Environment Agency have said that alternative options such as lowering the level of the River Teme will not work.

Tenbury Mayor Mark Willis says it has been pure luck that Tenbury has not had a major flood in the past nine years.

“Since 2007 we have been lucky on a number of occasions to have escaped major disruption due to flooding,” he said last year.

“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.”

Tenbury MP Harriett Baldwin, who two years 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.

The MP believes that the most likely solution is to break the project down into manageable sections.