Your questions about flood

Why is this flood scheme needed? Roath Brook has caused flooding four times in the past 10 years. The community is one of the most at risk of flooding in Wales and has a comparatively low level of protection. This scheme will reduce flood risk to people in 405 homes and businesses.

What challenges have you faced in creating the scheme? This has been one of the most challenging schemes we have worked on. Just some of the things we had to take into account were:

Its urban and location.

The Grade II-listed and Conservation Area status of the parks.

The combined effect of upstream floodwater and incoming tides.

Properties in different parts of the area having different chances of flooding.

The value local people place on the area to relax and unwind. highly-populated

People say that no homes in the area near Roath Brook and Roath Mill Gardens have flooded. So why are you doing it? Fortunately, homes in this area have not yet been flooded. But they are at risk and we are not prepared to wait until flooding happens before providing them with the same level of protection as people in communities downstream such as Waterloo Gardens and beyond.

Flooding can devastate people’s lives and we have a responsibility to better protect at-risk communities across Wales. So I’d like to reassure people living in the area that the work to reduce their flood risk will continue.

Have you consulted enough with local people? Many well-attended drop-in events clearly demonstrated that local people were keen to know more and work with us on the project wherever possible. Some were attended by more than 100 people. As well as discussing flood risk, we also discussed how we can work sensitively to protect the special Edwardian character of the area’s parks while still protecting those at risk from flooding.

And as the work moved on, further events have been held and regular newsletters distributed locally to keep people up to speed with developments.

Why do you have to cut down so many trees? Trees are a hugely important part of our environment. They lock up carbon, provide a valuable home for wildlife and create areas where we can relax and enjoy nature.

Our consultation also reaffirmed to us how important trees were to the character of the area and to people who use these parks. We understand people don’t want to see them removed and we have been able to preserve many of the parks’ most spectacular and important trees by deliberately designing scheme around them.

Unfortunately, for this phase of the project, we can’t avoid the need to remove 38 trees from Roath Brook and Mill Gardens. This is regrettable, how- the flood