How Welsh homes are being overwhelmed by rain that local drains can’t handle
NOTE: BCBC, which is mentioned several times throughout this story, stands for Bridgend County Borough Council, the local authority responsible for the Bridgend area in South Wales.
Alex Bland is a musician and geologist living in Bridgend, South Wales. Until recently, the small culvert running through the area had never caused problems, but increasingly intense rainfall is putting more water through a system that was never designed to cope with it. His home has now flooded twice in the past two years, alongside 12 other homes on his street and around 40 further upstream. Alex and independent councillor Steve Bletsoe told us how the community has come together to respond, from monitoring water levels to putting out sandbags for neighbours, and why maintaining waterways and getting new developments right will become increasingly important as extreme weather changes.
31 Jul 2026
A South Wales community café is responding to a major coal tip landslide
In this story we meet Ralph Connor and Tina Honeyfield, who live in Cwmtillery, a former coal-mining town in the South Wales valleys. They run Caffi Tyleri, a community café, and Pentref Tyleri, a local group that has become a focal point for tackling unemployment, food poverty, and the challenges of managing the upland landscape through natural flood prevention.
In November 2024, after weeks of heavy rain, an old coal tip on the hillside above their home gave way. The landslide swept through around forty houses, including the one they had lived in for seventeen years. We spoke with them about what happened that day, and about what it means to live beneath the legacy of coal - about the closures of the mines, the underfunding that followed, and the slow accumulation of risk that remained just out of sight until it surfaced in the slip.
They also spoke about Cwmtillery itself - he way the town holds together, and the kind of community spirit that emerges when everything else gives way, and which, they believe, will carry it through what comes next.
13 Jul 2026
A grassroots football coach on preparing for a hotter climate
In this story we meet Oli Gibson, a volunteer coach at Ringmer Football Club near Brighton, where three generations of his family are involved in the club. We visited Ringmer’s ground to talk about football’s place at the heart of local communities, and how climate change is beginning to reshape the game from the grassroots upwards.
In his day job, Oli is a heat and performance researcher at Brunel University, so we discuss the challenges facing both artificial and natural pitches, from synthetic surfaces that can reach temperatures of 70°C to the increasing pressure on grass pitches during longer periods of heat and drought. Drawing comparisons between the resources available in the professional game and the realities of grassroots football, and reflecting on the current World Cup - set to be the hottest on record - Oli also considers why climate change is still not being properly addressed in football’s biggest conversations, and what it will take for the sport to adapt as extreme heat becomes an increasingly familiar part of the season.
Who has been a guest on Stories From Round Our Way
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Abi Churchley
Steve Churchley
Ian Campbell
Khara Schrijvers
Adrian Bartlett
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