The Prince of Wales today undertook a series of engagements across Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, focusing on the growing need for communities to build resilience against increasingly severe weather events.
The visit comes amid warnings that a potentially record-breaking El Niño could amplify climate impacts around the globe.
Prince William’s day comprised three separate stops, each addressing a different dimension of flood preparedness and environmental stewardship.
He spent time with residents still reeling from recent storm damage, met organisations tackling flood risk through nature-based approaches, and visited a young farmer embarking on the Duchy of Cornwall’s inaugural long-term Regenerative Farm Business Tenancy.
The Prince of Wales today undertook a series of engagements across Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, focusing on the growing need for communities to build resilience against increasingly severe weather events.
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The trip began in Skenfrith, a small south-east Wales village that has suffered repeated flooding devastation.
Storm Claudia struck the area in November 2025, causing widespread disruption and triggering a formal inquiry into how flood risk is managed locally and what measures could bolster future resilience.
At White Castle Farm, the Prince learned about efforts by the charity Stump Up For Trees to restore native woodland as a natural defence against flooding.
His final engagement took him across the border to Monkhall Farm in Herefordshire, where he met 25-year-old Harry Davies, the Duchy’s first regenerative farm tenant.
The Prince also spoke directly with villagers about how repeated flooding has disrupted their everyday lives, hearing about the difficulties they continue to face as another winter approaches.
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At Skenfrith Village Hall, the Prince brought together senior figures from Natural Resources Wales and Monmouthshire County Council, the bodies responsible for acting on the formal inquiry’s recommendations.
It marked the first occasion these key decision-makers had gathered to discuss the inquiry’s findings since its publication.
Conversations centred on the toll the flooding has taken on Skenfrith and the broader Monmouthshire area, what lessons have emerged from the storms, what progress has been achieved in the months since, and how long-term resilience might be strengthened going forward.
The Prince also spoke directly with villagers about how repeated flooding has disrupted their everyday lives, hearing about the difficulties they continue to face as another winter approaches.
Prince William’s day comprised three separate stops, each addressing a different dimension of flood preparedness and environmental stewardship.
|
FLICKR
He then headed to White Castle Farm, where he met the team behind Stump Up For Trees, a community environmental charity established in 2020 with the ambition of planting one million native trees across South Wales and the Bannau Brycheiniog.
The organisation collaborates with farmers, landowners and local communities to boost biodiversity, enhance water quality and build climate resilience.
Natural flood management sits at the heart of the charity’s mission, with increased tree cover intended to slow water movement through catchments, improve soil absorption and lower peak river flows during intense rainfall.
During the visit, the Prince met a farming family that has partnered with the charity to make their land available for upstream flood interventions.
He also joined volunteers taking part in a seed collection exercise and heard about progress towards the million-tree target.
For his final stop, Prince William travelled to Monkhall Farm in Herefordshire in his capacity as Duke of Cornwall. There he met Harry Davies, the 25-year-old who has taken on the Duchy’s first regenerative Farm Business Tenancy, a significant step in the estate’s goal of having all its equipped farms operating under regenerative principles by 2035 as part of its broader ambition to become nature-rich and net zero.
The Duke also met representatives from Regenified, an organisation conducting baseline assessments at the farm through a Duchy-funded programme designed to help tenants track and demonstrate their regenerative progress.
The initiative aims to improve soil health, support biodiversity and protect water quality, creating farming systems better equipped to withstand a changing climate.
Healthier soils play a direct role in flood prevention: raising soil organic matter by just one per cent enables the ground to retain an extra 20,000 gallons of water per acre.
Near Monkhall Farm, the Duchy has also collaborated with the Wye and Usk Foundation and Herefordshire Council to construct attenuation ponds holding over 1,500 cubic metres of water, complemented by tree and hedgerow planting to slow surface water runoff.