Four Years, Seven Floods & Some Downtown Business In Tenbury Wells (UK) Are Giving Up

In the aftermath of its latest flood, the town centre of Tenbury Wells was a scene of chaos. The main street was caked with a layer of mud, shop windows were smashed and piles of sodden furniture and wares, all ruined, were heaped in the street. “On Monday when we came in we wanted to leave, lock the doors and just disappear,” said Richard Sharman, the owner of Garlands Flowers. “We’ve lost about £6,000 and we won’t get a penny back. Six weeks ago we lost about £4,000 in a flood.”

Sharman has been trading in the heart of Tenbury for about seven years, and became emotional as he said: “If we get flooded again I’ll walk away, and the landlords can sue us. I don’t care, I’ll go bankrupt. I’ve had enough.” The Worcestershire market town made headlines this week when a 57-year-old man drove a tractor at speed down the flooded high street on Sunday, sending a wave of water towards businesses that smashed windows and doors, adding to the devastation.

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In the past four years, Tenbury has been flooded seven times by the River Teme, and business owners said they had only just got back on their feet from a flood on 17 October when the latest deluge hit. Tenbury Wells is in a particularly precarious position as it is a flat, low-lying town almost surrounded by water – the Teme to the north and a tributary, the Kyre Brook, to the south.

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Most people in the town centre cannot afford insurance – the premiums are too high because flooding is so frequent, they said. Businesses and homeowners have adapted accordingly, placing electrical sockets high up, not storing things on the floor and making makeshift flood defences of their own.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/01/could-tenbury-wells-be-the-first-uk-town-centre-abandoned-due-to-climate-change