Flood barriers in place as Shropshire hit by more wind and rain

The Environment agency has flood alerts in place for the River Severn, the Severn Vyrnwy Confluence and the Tern and Perry catchments, with river levels expected to rise during the day.

Flood barriers are up in Frankwell in Shrewsbury. The short stay car park is closed, with parts of the main long stay car park cordoned off.

Meanwhile, firefighters rescued a woman and a young girl from a car which had become trapped in flood water near Pool Quay, Welshpool.

Drivers were warned to take care on the roads, with the AA reporting slow traffic due to surface water and rain on the M54 between Junction 3 for Albrighton and Junction 2 for Wolverhampton.

Fields and flood plains have been swamped with rising water and alerts have been placed on a number of waterways.

At Montford Bridge, near Shrewsbury the River Severn has flooded surrounding fields and at Llanymynech fast flowing flood waters have spilled on to farm land.

With more rain forecast and the Welsh hills being deluged, it is expected that the river levels will continue to rise.

The river at Welsh Bridge in Shrewsbury reached 2.51 metres - 1.4 metres above the typical range. At Castle Foregate in the town the river had reached almost a metre high, well in to the flooding zone.

At Crew Green, water levels were recorded at more than five metres while at Llanymynech the River Vyrnwy had started to fall from a peak of 4.08 metres.

More wet weather is forecast and winds are predicted to gust at up to 32 miles an hour.

Two amber alerts are in place for Shrewsbury on the River Severn and the Tern and Perry confluence and flooding is possible at Frankwell car park.

Roads that are susceptible to flooding are the Cae Howel to Edgerley road, the Melverley to Melverley Green road and Ponthen to Melverley road.

Dave Throup, Environment Agency manager for Herefordshire and Worcestershire, said that rain in Wales would continue to raise water levels further downstream and that barriers would remain in place for the next few days.

He added: “The River Severn is very full at the moment. We had another inch of rain fall in Wales and that is going to push the river levels up. It will probably be higher than it has been and for that reason we are going to leave the barriers in place at Frankwell.

“However, we do not have any plans to put further barriers in place in either Ironbridge or elsewhere in Shrewsbury.

“These are normal winter levels for the river and people are well used to this sort of weather.”

Helen Roberts from the Met Office said that rain would continue on Thursday, with persistent showers. Winds would remain blustery but the weather could clear on Friday, with some sunshine peeking through.