Shropshire flooding: Roads and schools shut as river bursts banks

Roads have been closed and two schools shut as river levels rose in Shropshire.

More than a dozen roads have been closed and properties near the River Severn flooded.

Two people were rescued from a building on Coton Hill, Shrewsbury, along with a motorist in the village of Pentre.

Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge Primary School shut while water reached buildings in Bridgnorth. River levels there were expected to peak later.

Shropshire Council said the Severn had peaked at Welsh Bridge in Shrewsbury at 4.9m (16ft), lower than last February when it almost broke the record of 5.25m (17ft), which was set in 2000.

Attention had shifted to areas further downstream, including Ironbridge, Bridgnorth and Bewdley in Worcestershire, the Environment Agency said.

Defensive barriers have been put in place and the river was expected to peak over the weekend.

Granville Elson, who runs a butcher's shop in the Longden Coleham area of Shrewsbury, said its defences had held, but he had been forced to get in via a window.

And further down the street volunteers used a small boat to ferry staff in and out of a care home.

Care worker Karen Early said: "All the roads are blocked... so we have to catch a boat sometimes, which is a lot of fun."

The West Mid Showground in Shrewsbury also flooded and chief executive Ian Bebbington said he and his team were "absolutely shattered". Stock for charity shops had been lost, he said.

Also in the town, Mark Davies, the owner of Darwin's Townhouse, said he felt "really, really fed up" after floodwater had got into the bed and breakfast.

He also complained river level estimates from the Environment Agency had gone up and down, making it hard to plan his response.

The organisation said river "models are inherently complicated linking together millions of pieces of data" about factors such as how wet the ground is, and travel time down the river.

A spokesperson said as the agency included "real, rather than forecast, information into the models they have responded to the changing information".

The organisation stated it always gives a predicted range of levels and updates them regularly, adding it was "always expecting high levels", which was why it began communicating about the risk "several days before the peaks happened".

More than a dozen residents were evacuated in the early hours from flats north of the town centre.

Resident Paul Morahan said: "For it to have got as deep, as quickly as it has (in) such a short space of time... you're left numb really."

Jane Cuthbert-Brown had 50cm (20in) of water in her home in Pentre, near Shrewsbury.

"We put door defences in, but it didn't stop the water which came through the floor and through the walls, because [they] are a bit like a sieve, being a 300-year-old sandstone property," she said.

Donna Byard, owner of the flooded Ironbridge Antiques, Arts & Craft Centre, said: "It's pretty gutting, because it's been such a tough year with Covid and with the floods. It's just been back to back... no let-up at all.

"It's disheartening to say the least, but you just have to keep getting up... and carrying on as best you can."

Roads close to the river in Ironbridge, such as The Wharfage and Dale End, were closed.

In Bridgnorth, the river was expected to peak at between 5m (16.4ft) and 5.5m (18ft).

Some people in the town complained about the lack of flood defences with one, Twitter user StAndrewsBlue tweeting: "Yet again the largest town on the River Severn with NO flood defences is forgotten. Five floods in 15 months."

The Environment Agency said it had commissioned a review after the flooding last February and considered temporary barriers or permanent embankments.

But it concluded it was not "technically feasible, economically viable and socially acceptable" to use public money to set up defences.

Changes have also been made to the way agencies deal with flooding, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Shropshire Council said it had provided lateral flow coronavirus tests to people it had helped out of their properties "to ensure their safety and that of others".

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