The flood-prone town that's being abandoned by insurers

One more deluge could bankrupt Tenbury Wells, yet its application for defence funding has been rejected

- By Helena Horton

Walking through the centre of Tenbury Wells is like stepping into a postcard. The independent shops are painted in cheerful colours and flowers spill out of planters. Bunting festoons the lampposts, and the pubs are full, their steamed-up windows glowing orange.

You would not know that just a few months ago, the Worcestershire town was a wreck, destroyed by flood water, with windows smashed and shops gutted. The inhabitants have worked hard to make it pristine again.

But speak to those who own the shops and you see the misery through the stiff upper lips. Insurers have abandoned Tenbury, which means one more flood could bankrupt the town.

“One more flood and I’m leaving,” said florist Richard Sharman, whose shop on the corner of the high street was inundated four times last year. “I can’t get contents insurance, I can’t afford to rebuild if we flood again, and my lease is up at the end of December, so I just won’t renew it.”

Sharman did up the shop in 2023, when he moved in. Soon, it could join the small but growing number of abandoned and derelict buildings on the high street.

Climate breakdown is thought to be a driver behind the increasing frequency of severe flooding in Tenbury, which sits between the River Teme and the Kyre brook. Floods used to occur about once a decade. But now, deluges are an almost annual occurrence, having hit in 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2024.

Despite potentially being the first English town to become uninsurable owing to floods, Tenbury is not going to be included in the government's list of flood schemes. Labour said it would give £2.65bn ($3.5bn) for flood and coastal erosion risk management over two years to March 2026, but the town council has been informed that Tenbury did not make the cut.