Technology to make town ‘more resilient’ to flash flooding and sub-zero temperatures

The Sid Valley will become ‘more resilient’ to flash flooding and sub-zero temperatures with the installation of its very own weather station, writes Clarissa Place.

Sidmouth Town Council has received £1,500 in funding from county councillor Stuart Hughes’ locality budget to install the technology. It will be used by Devon County Council (DCC) and the Met Office.

Town clerk Christopher Holland said Sidmouth’s emergency committee backed the idea, adding: “It will enable local people to keep up with rainfall levels. It will report temperature, pressure, wind strength and rainfall. It can give an early warning if they can keep an eye on it. It just shows we are trying to look forward and trying to use technology to our advantage.”

The weather station will be installed at Woolcombe House in the coming months.

Cllr Hughes said it would help to predict possible flooding problems and could assist snow wardens in pre-gritting roads that were not on DCC’s main routes. He added: “A weather station such as this will help Sidmouth, Sidford, Sidbury and Salcombe Regis become more resilient to weather events and, with the information monitored and used by the county council’s 24-hour Highways Control Centre, will also hold us in good stead. I welcome this initiative and believe it’s a first for a town or parish council in Devon to have its own weather station.”

A Met Office spokesman said: “All the contributions coming in from across the UK help us to understand its rather complex and chaotic weather.”