Glass flood defences plan rejected

County planners have rejected proposals to install permanent glass panel walls to prevent flooding along the southern bank of the River Wye near the Old Bridge in Hereford.

The Environment Agency wants to replace the demountable flood defences currently in place along the footpath in front of the homes next to the Saracens Head and also on a section next to Greyfriars Bridge.

The proposals, which included floodgates, aimed to reduce the whole life cost of the defences and reduce the risk of failure to deploy during flooding.

The passive defences would have be located entirely within the footprint of the existing wall and designed to fit into the existing supports.

But councillors felt the walls would be vandalised with graffiti and would hurt tourism and impact on the historic nature of the area.

Ward councillor Kevin Tillett said the proposals would not amount to any change to the flood defence capacity and that there has not been a failure to deploy the current defences in the past.

He said: “This is a historic site alongside the river unaltered for 150 years the decision today will materially alter it irreversibly.”

Coun Tillett added that the plans were ‘purely a financial cost saving exercise for the Environment Agency’.

Environment Agency manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Dave Throup said the proposals were a very important improvement for Hereford’s flood defences.

“We try to make our defences passive. By that, neither we or anyone else has to do much for us,” he said.

“What that does is take out a lot of the risk from the deployment of flood defences.”

He said it takes six hours to deploy the demountable barriers in Hereford and that permanent glass walls would mean the defence would be ready to go at any time.

Mr Throup said delays in deploying defences in Bewdley and Upton-on-Severn  had led in flooding in the past.

The committee rejected the scheme by 11 votes to two.