Plaid’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Llanelli, Myfanwy Davies and local AM Helen Mary Jones have been pushing for long term solutions to flooding problems in Llanelli. Residents often suffer flooding because the sewage system does not have the capacity to drain extra rain water during severe weather.
At a meeting on the 17th of November, Helen Mary and Myfanwy met with Senior Operational Managers from Welsh Water and were told that at that time, the company had plans to invest up to £6 million pounds in building new storm water drains in Llanelli. The new plans would increase drainage during and after heavy rain. Later that month, on the 26th of November, Ofwat published price limits that would appear to have had some impact on these plans and on the 14th January, Dwr Cymru publicly released a figure of £2.7 million for investment in the storm water drainage programme in Llanelli.
Welsh Water is a not-for-profit company and as such all its profits are used to maintain infrastructure and prevent floods. While cost-savings can be made through efficiencies, there are serious concerns about the effect of the regulator’s decision on these crucial plans for Llanelli.
Myfanwy contacted Elfyn Llwyd MP, leader of the Plaid Cymru Parliamentary Group to ask him to raise the issue with the Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain. Mr Llwyd asked the Secretary of State if he agreed that Dwr Cymru/Welsh Water should be allowed to invest in infrastructure such as the flood prevention work that had been planned for Llanelli but that appears to have been adversely effected by Ofwat’s decision on what represents value for money.
Llanelli’s Labour MP Nia Griffiths who was present at the time, did not make any comment on the discussion.
Myfanwy said: “I am very pleased that Mr. Llwyd was able to respond so quickly to our concerns. Flooding is a terrible event and is happening more and more often across Llanelli.
I fully welcome Welsh Water’s current plans for investment in Llanelli. Nearly £3 million of investment in our storm drains will make a difference and I hope that sum can be increased. There are concerns about the possible effect of Ofwat’s decision on the larger programme of investment that was previously described to Helen Mary and myself. We are very happy to discuss the exact figures with managers at Welsh Water/Dwr Cymru who are surprisingly reticent about that discussion now. We are of course, sensitive to their need to avoid conflict with Ofwat.
Our aim here, is to make sure that Llanelli gets the investment it needs and it can’t be right that Welsh Water is being judged in the same way as a company run by shareholders because as a not-for-profit company, it has to use income from customers to maintain and improve drains such as those we need so badly in Llanelli.
It looks very much as if we are being denied work to prevent floods based on a regulator that is judging a different kind of company.
Working with Helen Mary and the Plaid Parliamentary group I hope we can sort out this mess to prevent flooding here and across Wales”
Helen Mary said: “The first step has now been taken towards allowing Welsh Water to invest in Llanelli as was described to Myfanwy and myself before Christmas. I sat on the committee that established Welsh Water as a not-for-profit company and so I am delighted that we are finally making progress towards letting it invest properly in Wales and managing it according to what it is meant to do – which is to develop and maintain good services in the long-term”.
Elfyn Llwyd said: “Flooding is a major concern in Llanelli and I know that Myfanwy has been supporting local residents in dealing with issues such as insurance and flood protection and has also been involved in more long term local solutions. When Myfanwy contacted me to discuss what appear to be significantly reduced plans by Welsh Water to deal with storm water drainage, it was clear that we would need to act in Parliament to make sure that scheme and many like it across Wales are funded.
Given the seriousness of flooding in Llanelli and the obvious need to look at how Welsh Water is regulated, I am surprised that Llanelli’s MP did not raise this issue herself.”
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