The council has commissioned its own report into flooding in Milford Haven that forced people from their homes last year, partly due to residents’ lack of confidence in previous surveys.

A task and finish group was set up to examine the council’s emergency response across the county and included a focus on the flooding at Havens Head and Lower Priory in November 2018.

At Thursday’s (November 21) services scrutiny committee, head of infrastructure Darren Thomas said that consultants Capita had started work on on new flood study, funded by a Welsh Government grant.

Mr Thomas said it would include feedback and discussions with residents and local members, but would take time as a new model would be developed.

Cllr Viv Stoddart, local member, welcomed the engagement with the community who she said had felt “abandoned” during a “traumatic event” which still impacted on them today.

Responding to queries about why data from a previous report carried out by Milford Haven Port Authority couldn’t be used to speed up the process, Cllr Stoddart added: “The residents have had no confidence in a report commissioned by the Port Authority.”

A lot of correspondence included a “long history of the Port Authority failing to do remedial work that could have mitigated the flooding.

“Darren is perhaps too polite to say so but the residents would have absolutely no confidence in that report,” she said.

The new flood study report is due to be completed in February 2020 and will be discussed at scrutiny in March.

Cabinet member for infrastructure Cllr Phil Baker added that the additional work modelling the whole flood risk area will “hopefully allay the fears that the residents have. It is the right thing to do to commission a new piece of work in it’s entirety.”