A group of people are walking across a wooden bridge over an estuary where the tide has left pools of water in the sand. There is a railway line on the left hand side of the picture.

NICW undertakes several study tours a year to understand more about local infrastructure issues. This blog post describes our visit to Fairbourne and Abermaw in March 2025

Several times a year the Commission visits different parts of Wales to understand local issues of infrastructure that can help inform our views and bring more lived experience to our recommendations. 

In March 2025 we visited Fairbourne and Abermaw (Barmouth) to find out more about how communities and public bodies are working to improve local resilience to coastal flooding, and to see how the rail link across the estuary is being strengthened in the face of increasing climate threats.

Fairbourne

Fairbourne has featured highly in press articles about climate change. We took the train from Barmouth to Farbourne to meet with the Fairbourne Partnership to find out about the history and formation of the group.

The view from the train between Barmouth and Fairbourne

We met the Fairbourne Partnership at the Friog and Fairbourne village hall which is clearly a very important community asset. The Partnership is made up of local residents, Gwynedd Council, Scottish Power, Dwr Cymru, Natural Resources Wales, Ymgynhoriaeth Gwynedd Consultancy (YGC), North Wales Regional Emergency Planning Service and the Arthog Community Council. The Partnership was formed in 2024 after more than a decade of local activity in response to the many negative reports that had been produced about Fairbourne and its long term viability.

A mug with a picture of a village hall and the words 'Friog and Fairbourne village hall'
A painting with the title "Fairbourne Village Hall, at the heart of the village", and a picture of a building set back from a beach.

A group of nearly 20 people sit around large tables in a village hall, looking at a projector screen in the background.

We listened as the community representatives described their concerns about consistent and long-standing inaccuracies or exaggerations about the threat they face, and the impacts that negative press articles have upon their health and their livelihoods. The public sector organisations seem to have worked extremely hard to listen to the concerns of residents and are working with them to improve local resilience to flooding events. The Fairbourne Partnership is the culmination of many years of trust-building between the different partners, and could be seen as a potential model for other coastal communities to learn from.

We had a short meeting with Network Rail to learn about the project to replace the Grade 2 listed railway bridge – a truly impressive feat of engineering considering the challenges raised by the weather, the tides and the need to minimise the disruption to transport networks locally.

Walking to Barmouth

Following the meeting we walked from Barmouth to Fairbourne over the refurbished bridge. The walk took us along the seafront at Fairbourne and over the estuary – a stunning footpath, surely one of the most beautiful sea and land-scapes in Wales.

A video of the estuary between Fairbourne and Barmouth, with a train slowly traversing the bridge.

When we arrived at Barmouth we met with staff from YGC and Gwynedd Council who described the works that are being undertaken to reduce the flood risk at two separate places on the seafront. The complexity of the works is hard to overstate; there is a lot going on under the road and pavement that presents a considerable challenge to major construction works. The completed works will provide improved amenity and reduce the flood risk to a number of businesses in the town.

A group of people stand on a beach promenade looking into the distance. The clouds are grey.
The north promenade
A group of people stand under a bridge and behind a barricade, clearly looking at something beyond the barricade that is not visible on the photo.
Work being undertaken at Victoria Gardens

What we learned

  • We heard that negative press about Fairbourne left some people feeling beseiged
  • The importance of listening to communities to hear their stories and understand their priorities should not be underestimated
  • The Fairbourne Partnership demonstrates good practice in joint working between the community, and public and private sector organisations. It could offer a model for other coastal communities to adopt
  • Network Rail is thinking long-term about climate change, and this influences their engineering choices
  • Upgraded infrastructure can – and should – improve multiple aspects at the same time. We saw the upgraded bridge with a wider active travel route which should be resilient for decades to come
  • Flood defence schemes are complex and expensive. No community in Wales will be able to build their way out of flood risk, which makes the recommendations of our flooding report, such as creating a Wales flood forum, highly relevant to coastal communities

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to everybody who gave their time to meet with us in Fairbourne and Barmouth. We will incorporate the things we learned from our visit into our thinking, our reports and our communications.

Photos and videos by David Clubb.

You can read about our October 2024 visit to the Bannau Brycheiniog here.