Bridge featured in Sex Education to help protect valley from flooding

A bridge that featured in Netflix series Sex Education is set to play a role in protecting the Wye Valley from flooding. 

A flood warning system has been housed on the grass verge at the Wireworks Bridge in Tintern since the year 2000 but was removed in June 2022 for essential repairs to the near 150-year-old structure.

School route

Built in 1876, the bridge provided a tram and rail link across the Wye to the lower works site and found fame after it featured heavily, from 2019, in the Netflix series as part of the route to school taken by two of the main characters. 

Welsh environmental body Natural Resources Wales has now been given planning permission to reinstate the flood warning station beside the bridge which is in the Tintern Conservation area. 

The permission also allows the construction of a small concrete plinth used to anchor a solar kiosk containing river level monitoring and telemetry – the automatic measurement and wireless transmission – equipment.

Flood risk

An armoured signal cable will run from the kiosk to a radar head on the downstream side of the bridge around one third of the way across form the right bank on the Welsh side of the Wye. 

The bridge is within the flood risk area and Monmouthshire County Council was asked by Natural Resources Wales to make the applicant, which is Natural Resources Wales, aware the area is at risk of flooding.