The system of flood warnings put in place by the Environment Agency were not good enough for Welsh residents whose homes were affected last month, a nationalist MP has claimed.

Speaking on Wednesday, Plaid Cymru MP for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy Elfyn Llwyd argued that the government agency had failed people in the villages of Llanrwst and Trefriw, whose homes were flooded when the River Conwy burst its banks, by not giving sufficient warnings.

"I'm asking them to look again at the whole situation and that there is a process of working with the fire service, local government and the police," he told BBC Radio Cymru.

"The severe flood warning means that there is a severe risk of flooding to property but the problem is that the agency does not give the warning out to villagers or areas that will be affected of less than 100 homes.

"This is not good enough in the context of Wales as there are numerous villages with less than 50 homes."

Agency admits mistakes

Mike Davies of the Environment Agency admitted it had been unprepared.

"We recognise that the people of the Conwy Valley are anxious after the floods," he said.

"Every time after an incident like this we review our procedures and look again on the system we had in place.

"In Llanrwst itself the warnings went out on our automatic phone system some hours before the floods. The situation in Trefriw is different.

"We were unprepared, bearing in mind that there hasn't been a serious flood in Trefriw that we know of since the 1960s.

"The present system we have would not have worked there, but we are reviewing the system to see what we can do."