LOCAL MP Stephen Doughty has raised concerns regarding the impact of storms on Penarth’s coastline.

Speaking after Labour called on the Secretary of State for Communities to make a statement on the government’s response to the flooding and storms, Mr Doughty told the Commons: “Communities in my constituency, particularly along the Penarth coastline, have also been affected by these unprecedented events in recent weeks, albeit not, thankfully, to the extent we have seen elsewhere in Wales or, indeed, in the south-west and the Thames valley.

“Can the Secretary of State please assure the House that he has, and will continue to have, close co-operation with Welsh Ministers, Welsh local authorities and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) given that climate change, wind, waves and rain respect no boundaries?”

The Cardiff South and Penarth MP spoke out because, although the issues dealt with by the Environment Agency in England are devolved here in Wales and come under the remit of Natural Resources Wales, he wants Ministers to take on board any lessons to be learned from the recent and ongoing flooding and storms in England and Wales, and vice versa.

Speaking after the debate, he said: “Soon after I was elected, I made an early visit to NRW to discuss these important issues – given the potential impacts on the Cardiff and Penarth areas from flooding, historical risk, and the risk of further changes due to climate change.

“I will continue to work closely with Vaughan Gething AM to scrutinise the work of NRW and if there are any lessons to be learned from experiences at the Environment Agency in England, we must take them on board.”

He added: “The Severn Estuary Partnership believes that ‘one of the most significant threats to the estuary over the next hundred years comes from climate change’ – and I agree.

“The potential threats from climate change, changes in our weather and sea level rises should be in all of our minds after these recent events.

“While we cannot attribute any individual event to climate change – the risks are huge. As well as building resilience, we need to move to a more sustainable and low carbon economy, and the UK government’s failure to set an ambitious decarbonisation target is shocking.”