The Shropshire councillor responsible for highways and transport insists the council could not have been better-prepared for the recent flooding across the region.

Bangor-on-Dee and Ellesmere are among areas in north Shropshire which have been affected by the recent storms and heavy rain.

Councillor Steve Davenport believes the magnitude of the recent storms has been unprecedented for the region, and feels it would have been difficult to predict such flooding.

“The whole of the county seems to have been affected,” he said. “Ludlow, Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury and Oswestry have been hit.

“How can you prepare better for the situation’? We knew the storms were coming in Shrewsbury, but we can’t stop the River Severn and we can’t stop the River Teme in Ludlow.

“When it’s coming up above three metres high, there’s not much you can do.

“This storm is unprecedented, and we are working with the government for funding and help.”

But Cllr Davenport says areas that are not renowned for flooding have also been affected, making the scale of the issue even bigger.

“Some of the areas that have suffered after being hit by the floods, we didn’t even know were flooding areas,” he explained.

“Most of the water on the road is coming from the fields, I saw it for myself; so it isn’t the farmers’ faults either.

“It’s just the sodden ground which, at the moment, just can’t take any more water in.

“And obviously because it’s coming off the fields, it’s bringing silt with it and that’s clogging up the drains that have already been cleaned out recently.”

Flood warnings and alerts remained in place at the River Vyrnwy and River Severn, with a severe flood warning in place further afield in the county in Shrewsbury.

Cllr Davenport insists lessons have been learnt from the past few weeks of floods, and believes it will help the council to deal with future incidents.

“You can’t get away from the fact that we’re dealing with unprecedented amounts of water; if you look at what happened in Yorkshire before Christmas, we’re not quite that bad, but we’re not far off,” he added.

“Have we learnt lessons from this? Of course we have.

“We’ve found places now that have flooded that we never even knew would flood – we now know we need to deal with that moving forward.

“We can look at these water courses which may need more work done to them for the future.

“If this is the way forward for global warming, then it needs looking at. But at the same time, I’ve talked to people that have been doing this for donkey’s years, and they say 20 years ago it was just as bad; so could this be something that happens once every 20 years? I don’t know.”

He also thanked those who have helped to restore normality across the region after the flooding.

Cllr Davenport said: “We knew it was going to rain again this week, but we didn’t know it was going to be as bad as Storm Dennis.

“We have had praise from people on the ground.

“The authorities and emergency services have been working around the clock and I can assure you that the Shropshire councillors are working around the clock.

“I can’t actually say how much they are doing. I’d like to give a big thank you to everyone.”