Following flooding in the West of Scotland over the last few days, Paul Hendy of the Scottish Flood Forum was interviewed by David MacKay on Scotland Tonight.

Do you agree or disagree with the comments made by Paul?

It is becoming increasingly clear that years of underinvestment by local authorities and Scottish Water need to be scrutinised from a flooding viewpoint. Both should and must do more in the coming years as the statutory duties of the Flood Risk Management Scotland Act 2009 come fully into force.

Our experience with Fife Council has seen a massive improvement in the way they deal with flooding over the last three years. The flood officers are taking their duties extremely seriously, working hard behind the scenes to do as much as possible. Unfortunately the budget they are given is no where near enough!

Many properties were built on sites where flooding was either not considered or the development was allowed to take place as long as it appeared to meet a 1 in 30 year flood return period. Thankfully the building standards of today insist on at least 1 in 200 years and it is now common for a Flood Risk Assessment to be performed in areas at risk of flooding.

SEPA has impressed FFAG over the last few years as they carefully consider flooding issues and planning applications. They’ve saved the community from worse flooding on more than one occasion.

SEPA has informed us of the next step in the recent consultation.

Flooding in Scotland: A consultation on Potentially Vulnerable Areas and Local Plan Districts closed on Monday 15 August.  Thank you for taking time to consider and respond to this consultation.  SEPA has incorporated information and responses into the National Flood Risk Assessment and has reviewed Potentially Vulnerable Areas and Local Plan Districts based on responses and accompanying information provided during the consultation. 

Today, SEPA is submitting proposals for Potentially Vulnerable Areas and Local Plan Districts to Scottish Ministers.  This submission also includes a digest of the responses we received to the consultation and a summary of actions taken by SEPA.

A copy of the submission can be found on SEPA’s website.

Following SEPA’s submission to Scottish Ministers, a revised National Flood Risk Assessment will be published in December 2011.  The finalised set of Potentially Vulnerable Areas and Local Plan Districts will be published by SEPA and the Scottish Government in December 2011.

If you have any queries relating to the Flooding in Scotland consultation or Ministerial submission, please contact SEPA’s flood risk management planning team, floodactconsultation@sepa.org.uk or call 0131 273 7262.

Lots of information to digest for many flood affected and at risk communities!

FFAG will be looking through the proposals to evaluate the impact of the submissions made by Fife Council and ourselves.

This isn’t exactly a flood related post but it is important news for Freuchie next month.

Patrick Laughlin, Secretary of Freuchie Community Council, has sought clarification about the ongoing gas works currently underway in Freuchie. A Scottish Gas Networks spokesperson informed him of the following works:

Week commencing 19 Sept – traffic will not be allowed to enter East End from the A92 – all access to Freuchie from the A92 will be via the garden centre crossroads/Kettle Road. (That will be a good test for the traffic calming measures!!!)

Week commencing 26 Sept – this is more awkward for residents of Freuchie Mill Road and Freuchie Mill. There will be no vehicular access between Freuchie Mill Road and the A92 – meaning that residents will have to head east to the A914 for all their vehicular journeys.

The gas works will also take place on the A92 itself, at the Cross Keys crossroads, during this fortnight. But half of the road will remain open at all times..

Patrick further commented:

Scotland Gas Networks say they are in full and ongoing dialogue with both BEAR Scotland and Fife Council about these works and how they are signposted. All the agencies see the A92 closure at Eden Bridge as the ideal time to do the works at Cross Keys junction and you can understand their logic. Providing their signposting is good, the disruption should not be too great.

Please drive extra carefully and slowly at the traffic calming measures while these works are ongoing. Most of us will have had near misses or scary moments while negotiating the chicanes. Even Freuchie Primary School kids brought this up as an important issue at one of their recent annual presentations to Freuchie Community Council.

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FFAG would like to recognise the part Fife Council employees have played over the last few days. An officer from Transportation Services was out yesterday checking watercourses and the hard working guys from Community Services, who would normally be cutting the grass and keeping Fife looking beautiful, were out today checking high flood risk sites.

Hopefully Freuchie, and other communities in Fife, won’t need to test out the other flood response improvements recently made by Fife Council and partner agencies.

Falkland once again experienced flooding last Saturday evening. This is a very scary occurrence as the rainfall measured by the Freuchie Mill weather station was only about 10mm for the full day. This level of rainfall really shouldn’t be causing flood events!

Local resident Betty Gilchrist supplied the above photos and the following update to FFAG:

After a great lot of thunder in the afternoon with no rain, after 5.p.m. it did rain but nothing much to talk about, then suddenly at the back of 8 o’clock this water suddenly arrived by 10 o’clock it had greatly subsided. During the time of the flooding it managed to get in to the house of Bridge-end, they do have a  flood gate but as they only moved into the house a few weeks ago were not expecting this to happen in the summer. Burnside cottage did have their floodgate on and prevented them from having water in their house. As my house sits a bit higher I was lucky again, but the day might come. The water from the burn does not burst its banks  in Balmblae it bursts it’s banks in the West Loan park and runs along the road and into the houses in Balmblae.

Once again a flood event occurs in the highest priority area in Fife waiting for a flood study. Time for Fife Council to get this important investigation work out of the way to allow prevention and protection measures to be put in place for Falkland and Freuchie.

The Fife Herald has a news article in this week’s paper about the flood response improvements made by Fife Council and partner agencies. Freuchie is mentioned in the article with a comment or two being supplied by FFAG.

It is also available online here.

The Courier has done another outstanding job of highlighting the flood risk present in Freuchie in today’s article about the new automatic flood barrier installed at Freuchie Mill. This new flood protection measure protects three Kingdom Housing Association properties from being deluged in another August 2008 type flood event.

Freuchie Flood Action Group pointed out the flood risk in this area, recommending a flood wall, a flood barrier and a pump be installed at this location. Kingdom Housing took our evidence and recommendation along to their flood consultants to come up with a design which implemented two of our three recommendations. Menzies were appointed as the contractor who fitted backflow valves, automatic airbricks, floodgates, constructed the flood wall and installed the automatic flood barrier manufactured by UK Flood Barriers – the first installation of its kind in Scotland.  In flood prevention and protection project terms this is a small and relatively inexpensive project that has massively improved the flood protection for three Freuchie Mill dwellings and added protection from sewer flooding to all Kingdom Housing Association properties.

Working with Kingdom Housing Association and their consultants we have identified further reasonable priced drainage improvements that would make a massive difference to the flood risk at Freuchie Mill. Our proposals would implement the drainage recommendations made by Fife Regional Council when Freuchie Mill was still being planned back in the 1990’s. Cllr MacDiarmid has been trying for some time to organise a meeting with Fife Council officers and other stakeholders to look at our proposals.

p.s. The press release prepared by UK Flood Barriers mentioned a nursing home hence the error in today’s newspaper article! There isn’t a nearby nursing home.

UPDATE: Article now online at http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Fife/article/12680/freuchie-mill-the-first-community-in-scotland-to-introduce-a-passive-flood-defence-system.html

At the November 2010 Enterprise, Environment & Transportation Committee meeting of Fife Council, a report on the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 and its implications for Fife Council was submitted by the Head of Transportation Services for consideration by councillors. FFAG has a previously blog post about this meeting.

John A Thomson, Chairman of FFAG, attended this meeting and came away with the concern that some councillors didn’t fully appreciate the legal duty being placed onto the council nor the financial and resourcing requirements.

One of our biggest fear was and still is the lack of ring fencing of the additional funds being released from the Scottish Government to assist with the transitional arrangements from the old 1961 Act to the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. Councillors mustn’t underestimate the amount of money it is going to take nor the scale of the task to comply with the new legislation.

The minutes of this meeting state:

366. FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT 2009

The Committee considered a report by the Head of Transportation Services advising on the phased implementation of the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 and the important implications for Fife Council arising from the implementation of the Act.
Decision

The Committee agreed:-

1. that further reports would be submitted to the Environment Enterprise and Transportation Committee following the introduction of legislation on Flood Risk Management
2. to note the financial and resource implications for Fife Council arising from the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009; and
3. to note the need to assist SEPA to prepare for local Flood Risk Management Plans and to comply with the new statutory duties.

It is welcome to see the committee has placed the above statement into the public domain; words that go some way to alleviate the concerns of FFAG. However we make this plea to the councillors; please don’t eye up the transitional funding for other projects until the FRM Act is fully implemented.

FFAG will continue to lobby our representatives and monitor progress as Fife Council works to fully implements the FRM Act.

Technorati Tags: Fife, Fife Council, flood, Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009, Scottish Government, SEPA

Whilst out and about yesterday, we spotted a manhole cover was missing, most probably stolen. The manhole in question was installed by Fife Council last year as part of the new Freuchie Mill Road surface drainage improvement scheme. This is a disgraceful theft of important infrastructure.

Photo: Missing manhole cover at Freuchie Mill Road

Fife Council Transportation Services was immediately made aware of this issue and should be dealing with it promptly. Yet again the poor taxpayer has to pick up the bill.

A Freuchie Mill resident has just informed us the theft occurred sometime between Thursday evening and Friday morning. He tried to report the missing manhole cover to Fife Council only to be told it was Scottish Waters’ responsibility, who he subsequently telephoned. FFAG has asked Fife Council to clarify who is actually responsible for this surface drainage scheme.

Let us be clear to thieves that Freuchie residents will call out the Police to investigate any suspicious individual milling about or in the  act of committing a criminal offence.

Residents of Freuchie who use the old county road / track down to the Kettle Produce plant should take care not to fall into this danger. It’s probably wise to keep a tight lead on your dogs as you go past.

This incident will be reported on at the Freuchie Community Council meeting held tonight at 7:30pm in the Lumsden Hall.

UPDATE
Fife Council has promptly confirmed the drainage scheme is their responsibility. Looks like someone needs to tell the telephone call handlers .

Fife Council has now made the site safe by placing a pallet over the manhole chamber and putting a couple of road cones on top. Hopefully it won’t be too long before this temporary measure is replaced by something permanent and more secure.

A thanks goes to Fife Council for the prompt action.

A police officer from Cupar Police Station has been out to look over the crime scene and to take a statement.

Technorati Tags: Cupar, Fife, Fife Council, Freuchie, Freuchie Mill Road, police, Scottish Water

It has been a costly exercise to develop the services offered by allayit on this websites. Within the next few weeks the weather station and webcamera services currently offered for free will be switched to a subscription service – pricing information and T&Cs will be revealed soon.

The services will also be switched over to a dedicated website that will provide the infrastructure to bring the next generation of services online quickly. It will also allow us to monitor and log account activity to detect and deal with any account abuse.

Publishing of our weather data will also cease on Weather Underground and PWS Weather. The FFAGWSFM Twitter account will be switched to private and only subscribers will be able to follow the hourly weather station updates. Republishing of our weather data and webcamera images will be strictly prohibited and legally enforced.

These charges are being introduced to help pay for the costly infrastructure already installed and to provide funds to further enhance and develop the flood monitoring and warning system. It is also necessary to find a funding mechanism to pay for the energy costs associated with keeping all the computers and electronics running 24×7. The last few years have revealed there is an on-going need for maintenance and routine replacement of equipment which has to operate in an extreme environment.

There will be concessionary rates for people on low income. Free / low cost accounts will also be provided to our councillors, the flood professionals at Fife Council and named staff at Kingdom Housing Association. There will certainly be other people who will qualify for low cost or free accounts.  

Please indicate your interest to maintain access to these services by either talking to John Thomson at No 15 Freuchie Mill or by sending a message using the Contact Us form.

Technorati Tags: allayit, Fife Council, Kingdom Housing, PWS Weather, Weather Underground