Leading civil engineering firm Jones Bros has embarked on a project to prevent flooding of the village of Tal-y-Bont near Bangor in North Wales. The works will also prevent flooding of the A55 dual carriageway that serves the North Wales coast and Anglesey.
The drainage work, focusing on the north coast village of Tal-y-bont, involves diverting excess floodwater from land surrounding the A55 safely into the Afon Ogwen river.
Ruthin-based Jones Bros Civil Engineering UK will construct 700m of earth bunds, ditches and culverts. This will divert floodwater during heavy rainfall from its current course into the Afon Ogwen and will require piping under minor county roads at three locations.
The project comes after sections of the village of Tal-y-Bont and the A55 were closed after becoming flooded during heavy rainfall, the most recent incident occurring in December last year. The Welsh Government is financing the scheme.
Traffic in the Tal-y-Bont area will be diverted during parts of the project, though Jones Bros will, as part of the works, construct a temporary road to enable public transport to maintain a route through the working area.
Hefin Lloyd-Davies, Jones Bros’ regional manager for North Wales, who is overseeing the 20-week project, said: “There have been problems with flooding in this area which this project will aim to alleviate.
“There is a bottle neck in the area where two water courses meet and this has caused some of the problems in the surrounding areas and roads which become flooded during heavy rainfall.
“The project will include us installing 200 metres of buried pipe to redirect the water into the main river Ogwen. We are also constructing a temporary road to avoid disruption to the local bus service.”
Family firm Jones Bros has developed considerable expertise in managing and carrying out flood projects, including an award-winning scheme to shore up the sea defences at seaside resort Tywyn in North Wales.
Founded in the 1950s and employing almost 350 people, Ruthin-based Jones Bros has grown rapidly in the last decade. It is currently working on contracts in various sectors including the construction of waste management facilities, highways, flood and marine defence and renewable energy projects around the UK.