ERIC Hudson, Mayor of Tenbury, hopes that a recent near miss when it came to flooding will act as a warning for people and businesses in the town.

Mr Hudson was speaking after the town escaped serious flooding at the end of November and just before Christmas and is hoping that some of the lessons from those incidents will be learned.

The mayor hopes more people will get involved in the town’s flood group.

He says that in some cases flood gates provided to premises could not be found and that in others work on improving the town centre meant that they could not be installed properly.

Heavy rainfall over the last weekend in October saw river levels rise to those not seen since the floods in the summer of 2007 that devastated the town.

During a terrible day 12 years ago the public toilets in Market Street were washed away and businesses in the town centre were flooded out.

Some of them were closed for many months whilst others never reopened.

In the intervening period there have been no permanent flood defences built

although some minor measures such as

flood gates have been introduced to keep water out of shops.