At the time of writing, emergency services along with council teams continue to respond to the severe flooding we experienced in multiple locations around the county, Skenfrith, Grosmont, Monkswood, Little Mill, Abergavenny and of course, worst affected was Monmouth. Watching the videos of the sheer power of the water pouring down Monnow Street, it is remarkable that no one lost their life. The emergency teams were incredible and came to Monmouthshire from all over South Wales and beyond. I was chatting to firefighters a few evenings ago from Porth, who were actually on their day off but felt compelled to come to Monmouth to help the relief effort.

We have seen extraordinary generosity from within our communities, donating clothes and other items, raising money for the victims of flooding and giving up their time to help muck out flood-hit businesses. The worst of nature brought out some of the best of humanity and I feel very proud of the way residents have come together to support each other. I’m also proud of the way many elected representatives have led from the front and helped communicate key messages, conduct welfare checks and deliver supplies to residents in need.

Storm Claudia was certainly an extreme weather event, but we know these events are increasing in frequency, meaning we need to adapt to them. We know that in Monmouth, the flood defences didn’t fail – the river rose above the defences to its highest ever level. I appreciate we’re still in the early days of the relief effort, but in time we must review what went wrong and how we can better protect properties in future.

What won’t help protect properties from a future flooding event is building even more houses in flood-hit communities and reducing the land available for surface water drainage. But this is exactly what 22 councillors voted for at the last full council meeting. Our Conservative team and the independents voted against the Replacement Local Development Plan, citing flood risk as well as a lack of investment in infrastructure to support more housing. The vote on the RLDP was a dead heat with 22 councillors in favour and 22 against. The constitution allowed the chair to cast a casting vote in favour of the plan. We need to adapt to more extreme weather events, including by improving our flood defences but also ensure that additional development doesn’t make existing threats worse.