Freuchie Flood Action Group

The Climate Change (Scotland) Bill passed stage 3 in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 24th June 2009.

A Bill to set a target for the year 2050, an interim target for the year 2030, and to provide for annual targets, for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; to provide about the giving of advice to the Scottish Ministers relating to climate change; to confer power on Ministers to impose climate change duties on public bodies; to make further provision about mitigation of and adaptation to climate change; to make provision about energy efficiency; to make provision about the reduction and recycling of waste; and for connected purposes.

Another piece of world leading legislation.

Technorati Tags: climate change, Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, Scottish Parliament

The Environment Agency in England has urged a doubling of funding for flood management funding after a report reveals that 1 in 6 homes are at risk from flooding, with more and more homes adding to this statistic as global warming becomes more and more significant.

Full story on the BBC website.

Flooding might not be such a big problem in Scotland, but it does show that a increase in funding and resources targeted at dealing with flooding must also happen throughout Scotland.

An interesting flood fact is £1 spent on flood management saves £7 in clean-up costs. Seems a bit of a no brainer in sheer financial terms even before we start to consider the people issues and the impact on business.

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Just a little reminder of this evening Public Consultation meeting at Freuchie Cricket Club at 7pm. We are very lucky to have secured two top speakers.

More information in our original announcement post.

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Cllr David MacDiarmid and John Thomson, Chairman of Freuchie Flood Action Group, attended a conference in Edinburgh yesterday that was suitably titled,

Holyrood ‘Sustainable flood risk management in Scotland:
implementation and key legislation’ conference

Photo: John Thomson, Chairman of Freuchie Flood Action Group, Paul Hendy of the Scottish Flood Forum and Cllr David MacDiarmid

Once again, John indicated to Roseanna Cunningham MSP, Minister of the Environment, that our invite to visit Freuchie was still open. It looks like our previous in person invite has been misplaced due to administrative changes in her team. An official invite is now winging its way towards Parliament. We’ll keep you updated on the Minister’s future visit.

Freuchie Flood Action Group would like to thank Freuchie Community Council for funding the place for our Chairman at this event.

Technorati Tags: David MacDiarmid, flooding, Holyrood, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Paul Hendy, Roseanna Cunningham, Scottish Flood Forum

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for Fife and the SEPA’s Flood Watch service has issued a “Flood Watch”.

This statement was prepared on 14 June 2009 at 4:46 am.
A FLOOD WATCH has been issued for Fife and Clackmannanshire rivers.
Scattered slow moving showers will develop today from late morning until mid evening. The rainfall is forecast very heavy with some torrential thundery downpours likely. Hourly rates of 10-20mm are possible with 3-hourly accumulations of over 25mm locally. This may lead to some localised flooding on smaller watercourses and surface runoff problems.

Technorati Tags: Fife, flooding, Flood Watch, Met Office, SEPA

The Times carried an interesting story on Saturday where it was reported that a civil engineer from Sheffield University argued for roads to be adapted to serve as stand-by rivers during flash floods. This is certainly an appropriate solution that could be used as one part of the flood prevention and protection work at Freuchie Mill.

Members of FFAG has been voicing this as a favoured and very plausible solution for some time now, so we’re gratified to learn we are in esteemed company with our thoughts. This solution doesn’t have the same flood water capacity handling issues as many of the other civil engineering designs put forward so far.

Thanks go to Terri of Freuchie Community Council for spotting this article and passing it along to us.

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60mm of rainfall overnight has seen areas of England and Wales affected by flooding. Our hearts goes out to the communities affected by this latest tragedy. We hope a minimal amount of business and homes are wrecked by the flood waters. More information can be found at this BBC news article.

This should be a timely reminder that rainfall events such as we saw last summer in Freuchie are now part of the norm. Let us all redouble of efforts in the campaign to improve flood prevention and protection for Freuchie.

As a starting point, you may like to come along to the public consultation meeting next week, which has been organised by FFAG and Freuchie Community Council. We’ve added another speaker to the evening!

Technorati Tags: England, FFAG, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council

A public meeting to discuss legal entities capable of delivering community projects will be held at 7pm on the 17th June 2009 at Freuchie Cricket Club. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Tom Black of the Development Trust Association will be delivering a presentation on possible legal structures and be available to answer questions from members of the public who are interested.

Cllr Andrew Arbuckle, Chairman of Newburgh Community Trust, will also be talking about the experience of setting up and operating a community group.

It should be stressed that this is much more than just about flooding. We are looking to set-up a legal structure to deliver all manner of community projects with a wide ranging remit and scope to serve Freuchie  and beyond.  

This is a joint meeting organised by Freuchie Community Council and Freuchie Flood Action Group.

Technorati Tags: Cllr Andrew Arbuckle, Development Trust Association, Freuchie, Freuchie Cricket Club, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Newburgh Community Trust, Tom Black