Welsh Assembly Minister for Natural Resources and Food, Alun Davies has announced an additional £2m to fund emergency repairs to flood defences that were damaged in the recent storms.

In a statement to Assembly Members yesterday, Alun Davies said:

“I am determined to help those authorities who face significant costs to repair essential flood defences. I have reviewed my Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management budgets and will be making £2 million available this financial year to support emergency works to our flood defence infrastructure.

“I can also confirm that around £9.m has already been allocated this financial year for repairs at Borth, Colwyn Bay and West Rhyl in order to improve vital coastal defence schemes.

“I am working with my Ministerial colleagues, particularly in respect of regeneration, local government and heritage to co-ordinate our whole government response to the floods and to identify other potential sources of funding. This will help  ensure that affected communities such as Aberystwyth quickly recover from the recent floods and remain open for business."

Following the storms in December and January, the Welsh Government contacted all affected authorities for initial reports of damage to the coastal defence infrastructure and other coastal assets and estimated funding needs. Current estimates suggest that close to £2million will be requested for emergency repairs.

Coastal defences and infrastructure which sustained damage include:

• Denbighshire: Works to rebuild the secondary sea wall in Rhyl
• Conwy: Significant works to repair damage to flood defences and loss of beach sediment at Kinmel Bay, Llanddulas and Conwy Morfa as well as work to the harbourside at Deganwy
• Gwynedd: Immediate repairs at Criccieth, Aberdyfi and Pwllheli flood defences.  In addition, a significant breach in the sea defence at Llanbedr is in need of urgent repair
• Ceredigion: Repairs to Aberystwyth particularly to the sea defences and historic sea front
• Pembrokeshire: Short term temporary work to reinstate a damaged road in Amroth is already complete.  Longer term repairs to the sea wall will be required.

The Welsh Assembly is now awaiting more comprehensive reports from Natural Resources Wales to help assess further funding needs. In January the Minister asked NRW to look at the flood events that hit Wales both at the beginning of December and again at the beginning of January and cover all coastal authorities in Wales.

The review is being carried out in two phases. The first phase, was completed at the end of January 2014, and was a swift review of the impacts of the flood events and assessment of the state of Wales’ coastal defences following the recent storms.

The second phase will look into the wider lessons learnt from the December and January flood events and the flood risk management in the affected areas. The intention, subject to further incidents of flooding, is that a report on the second phase will be available by April 2014.

Alun Davies said he was also continuing to explore a range of funding options both within and outside of the Welsh Government - discussions are ongoing with the UK Government and the European Commission.