Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch paid a visit to Monmouth this morning and met business owners affected by last week’s floods.

Mrs Badenoch was accompanied on the visit by Welsh Tory leader Darren Millar. The pair stopped off at recently re-opened Bar 125 where they met MS Peter Fox and county councillors as well as representatives of businesses hit by the the devastating floods.

Over coffee they chatted about the effects of the flooding as well as the impact of Wednesday’s budget.

Gillian Haycock from Chippenham Court recounted how the floods devastated the block of independent flats for the over 60's.

She said how she had driven back from Cambridge to see her 87-year-old father -in-law who is terminally ill, surrounded by four feet of water.

“He’s lost everything and asked if he was going to die in this AirBnB, it’s heartbreaking”.

She has 20 residents left who are on the first and second floor in flats that are privately owned living as best as they can.

“It’s devastation,” she said. “It’s down to concrete now.”

Darren Millar said that Peter Fox, MS has been working with the Welsh Government to make sure everyone can access funding,”Which I don’t think is sufficient now, but the biggest fear everybody has got that they will be overwhelmed again.”

Kemi Badenoch added: “I think this is the first time in 35 years that this has happened,” and asked the group if they had seen this coming.

County Councillor Martin Newell, whose ward the area sits in said his phone started to go off about 2-o-clock in the morning with flood alerts, “and then again at 6am so I came into town about 6.30am and the flood waters were already halfway up the town.

“The High Street was already decimated,” he added.

“I was here yesterday and as we walked by the chip shop next door, the eight ladies who work there were told they had lost their jobs as the popular chip shop wasn’t going to open for many months,” he added.

“Because we are so close to the two rivers, they are all struggling with their insurance and that’s the common story”.

Our colleague Mim Davies is taking this up with the insurance companies.

He went on to pay tribute to the emergency workers and the fire crews “Who are all part-timers who all have 40 hr full-time jobs and they were here all weekend from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, “incredible people”.

The owners of Bar125 recounted how they had only been opened for eight days before the flood waters came in through the front door.

“We were still cleaning up from the successful evening we had when the waters started to come in.

“When we put something out on social media asking for help to clean up, within 10 minutes we had an army of helpers.

“”Within 10 days we had managed to turn things around again and with the support from the council and environmental health officers, we were able to open up our kitchen today.”