The company’s south-west divisional director Neil Parsons told TTJ that the nearby River Avon burst its banks last week, sending more than 2ft of water into the yard and building.
Staff staged a clear-up operation, allowing the branch to reopen last Saturday morning, only for another deluge to reflood the site.
The branch has suffered flooding over several years as its Park Road site is within 150ft of the river. Staff are used to etching “tide marks” on desks in the office and making sure perishible stock items are high off the ground. But the latest floods have been higher than any before.
Mr Parsons estimated damage/loss of stock in the region of £6,000.
“There are roofing battens floating about and we’ve lost a fair amount of plywood.
“But it’s the loss of business that will be the bigger problem,” he said. “We were due to have a Trade Day this week which has had to be cancelled.
“The boys there are fantastic in getting the branch back up and running. They were a bit despondent after they had cleared up the first time and the flood came back.”
Mr Parsons said some flood defence work on the river had been completed a couple of years ago, which had seemed to help for a while.
He said as the site was not owned by Buildbase there was a limit to what flood prevention measures it could realistically put in place. The long-term plan is to relocate to another site.
Ironically, he said, Buildbase had flood defence products on sale about 4-5 years ago but, despite flooding issues in the region, they were not a good seller and decided to stop stocking them.
