FLOOD hit Monmouthshire’s council has turned around an expected half a million overspend – which it says could be crucial in helping with the clear up.

Storm Claudia severely impacted the county with Monmouth’s main high street swamped by the overflowing river Monnow and the deluge caused by heavy rainfall also hitting Abergavenny and the village of Skenfrith.

Since the flooding in the early hours of Saturday the local authority has been part of a wide ranging response across public services to assist residents and businesses and get the clear up underway.

The council’s performance and overview scrutiny committee met for its scheduled meeting, at County Hall in Usk, on Tuesday where councillors were updated on spending against the council’s agreed budget.

Latest figures show while the council had expected to end the year £533,000 in the red, based on spending from April to July, that has now been reversed and is on course for a £29,000 underspend at the end of the financial year in March.

That also means the £761,000 contingency fund has been restored to the budget as it will no longer be required to plug a spending shortfall.

Head of finance Jonathan Davies said the weekend’s flooding demonstrated why flexibility in the council’s £236 million budget is important.

He said: “It is pleasing we are able to restore some budget contingency. Events over the weekend probably show why such a contingency is needed and will be an important tool going forward in managing some impact of these events.”

Committee chair, Cllr Alistair Neill, said the meeting was being held “following quite devastating flooding” but said the “council’s business needs to go on” and acknowledged officers and councillors had been responding to the flooding since the weekend.

The Gobion Fawr Conservative said the council is “very grateful to the efforts of Monmouthshire County Council and other emergency services.”

The improved financial performance is attributed to the impact of grant funding to meet core costs in providing social care but the financial report noted risks inbuilt into the forecast remain.

Those include “volatile” demand for high cost services including social care and pupils with additional learning needs, inflation which is still higher than anticipated, declining debt recover especially for council tax and social care charges and that only 90.4 per cent of the planned £10.7m savings target is expected to be achieved, down from the previously forecast 92.1 per cent.

The collective schools deficit, with 18 of 35 schools including the pupil referral unit, expected to end the financial year just over £7m in the red was also highlighted as a “significant risk”.

Mr Davies said: “It does reduce our financial resilience as we carry those deficits on our financial balance sheet and will be a key focus for the next five to six months.”

The council currently also anticipates it will have an £11.5m shortfall in funding in 2026/27 and £37.4m less than it needs over the medium term period through to 2029/30. It is working on a plan to address that.