More than 500 homes and businesses were flooded across Wales and England during Storm Bert, it has emerged, as forecasters issued another severe weather warning for rain in parts of southern Britain.
In Wales, the first minister, Eluned Morgan, said 400 homes had been damaged as well as businesses and infrastructure, and reviews were being done to find out why some householders appeared not to have received warnings in time.
She said her administration would be asking for more money from the UK government to keep old coal tips safe after a landslip in Cwmtillery, south Wales, forced people out of their homes.
The UK environment secretary, Steve Reed, said 107 properties had been hit in England and that more flooding was likely but its impacts should be less severe than they were at the weekend.
The Met Office has issued a yellow severe weather warning from 10pm on Tuesday to midday on Wednesday for parts of London, Essex, Kent, Sussex, the Isle of Wight, Dorset and a small area around Plymouth in Devon. The warning does not include Wales.
The low pressure weather system bringing more rain to southern England has been named Storm Conall by the Dutch Weather Service (KNMI). It is due to bring strong winds across the Netherlands on Wednesday and Thursday.
The UK Met Office, KNMI and Met Eireann in Ireland name storms to make communication about severe weather easier. Conall is the third named storm of the 2024-25 season, following Ashley in October and Bert at the weekend.
As of 4pm on Tuesday there were still about 100 flood warnings in place for England and Wales, including one severe warning, signifying a danger to life, for the River Nene at Billing Aquadrome in Northamptonshire.
During first minister’s questions in the Senedd, opposition politicians asked Morgan why some people had only been warned of impending flooding by neighbours banging on their doors, and suggested lessons had not been learned since Storm Dennis wreaked havoc in Wales in 2020.
Morgan said: “We will need to work with Natural Resources Wales (NRW) in terms of seeing if there could have been better warning.” She said more than 95,000 messages were sent by NRW and 46,000 customers were reached. “So, they did quite a lot. The question is: could they have done more? And that is something that clearly will need to be analysed.”
She said lessons had been learned from Storm Dennis and £300m had been invested. About 2,000 homes were affected in Pontypridd and other parts of Rhondda Cynon Taf in south Wales in 2020, falling to 150 this time, Morgan said. “That is a significant number of people who were protected.” But she admitted: “There will be times when it will be difficult for us to protect every property in Wales with the changes in climate.”
Extreme rainfall is more common and more intense because of human-caused climate breakdown across most of the world, particularly in Europe. This is because warmer air can hold more water vapour. Flooding has most likely become more frequent and severe as a result.
The Welsh government is providing grants of £500 to all affected households and £1,000 for those without insurance.
It is estimated it will cost up to £600m to make all of the 2,000 coal tips in Wales safe. Morgan was asked why she had only asked for – and been given – £25m from the UK government in the budget for the work.
Morgan said: “We recognise this is a 10- to 15-year project, it’s not something you can put in place overnight. And there will be limits, in terms of being able to absorb additional money, because there will be limits in terms of expertise, equipment, so if they gave us the money it would be very difficult for us to use it all. We, of course, will be going back to ask for more money in relation to coal tips.”
