HEAVY rain will not affect work preparing the site at Abermule for the £4 million Bulk Recycling Facility, says Powys County Council (PCC).

Over the weekend villagers woke up and found that the site had flooded due to the deluge that the whole of Powys experienced, leaving some parts with major flooding issues.

PCC has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that delays due to the weather have been calculated for.

Plaid Cymru group leader Cllr Elwyn Vaughan, (Glantwymyn) said: “The site that never floods we were told.

“The site that won’t deflect water into people’s homes and properties further down the Severn Valley we were told, after this is covered with concrete.

“The site that will only see water once in 100 years we were told, yet within a month has floods.

“Further proof that PCC got this wrong at Abermule and should have secured another site.”

Mark Pearce, of Abermule Communities Together (ACT), said:  “There’s still the delayed watershed from further up the hills and rivers still to come, which will take another day or so to reach Abermule.”

A spokesman for PCC spokesman said: “The programme won’t be affected by the heavy rain.

“The works were always scheduled to take place over the autumn and winter so the contractor would have programmed in delays due to the weather.”

As part of the planning application considered by PCC’s planning committee in August 2018 a Flood Consequence Assessment (FCA) was done based on the the properties upstream to the south and north side of the site.

To the south there would be no issue – but to the north a farm building complex would experience a slight increase of surface water during a once in 30 years rainfall “event”.

The report added that in a one in 100 years severe weather event the farm building complex would experience flooding from 300mm to 1.5 metres.

But it was not seen as a risk to the development site itself.

In August 2018, planning permission was given for the £4 million scheme.

In May the PCC cabinet voted unanimously in favour of going ahead with it.

PCC has stressed  that the facility is to help the authority deal with hitting the Welsh Government recycling targets of 70 per cent by 2024/25.

It believes the recycling bulking facility is “essential to maximise the efficiency” of the collection vehicles and is “ideally located between the two main population centres of North Powys”.