Freuchie Flood Action Group

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Freuchie Community Council

Meeting 7.30 pm Wednesday 10th March 2010

Lumsden Memorial Hall

AGENDA

1. Welcome and Apologies

2. Membership Resignations of J Kenyon and Marilyn Brown

3. Minutes of meeting of 10th February

4. Fife Council Matters – Councillors/Locality Manager

5. Presentations by the youth of Freuchie at 8pm

6. Treasurer’s Report

7. Planning (to be advised at meeting)
— New Applications None to date
— Applications dealt with None to date

8. Correspondence (to be advised at meeting)
— Matters for decision/action
— Matters for noting

9. Other Business
— Multi-use Games Area update
— Flooding in Freuchie update
— Footpath from Green Tree Brae to Dykeside update
    (Technical meeting on Thursday in Cupar)

10. Date of the AGM and next meeting will be at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 14th April 2010 in the Lumsden Memorial Hall.

Technorati Tags: Fife Council, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council

Meeting 7.30 pm Wednesday 10^th February 2010

Lumsden Memorial Hall

AGENDA

1. Welcome and Apologies

2. Minutes of meeting of 13^th January

3. Fife Council Matters – Councillors/Locality Manager

4. Treasurer’s Report

5. Planning (to be updated at meeting)

1. New Applications None to date
2. Applications dealt with None to date

6. Correspondence (to be advised at meeting)

Matters for decision/action

Matters for noting

7. Other Business

— Multi-use Games Area update

— Flooding in Freuchie update.

— Footpath from Green Tree Brae to Dykeside update

— Invitation of village youth to March meeting

8. Date of next meeting will be at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 10^th March 2010 in the Lumsden Memorial Hall

Technorati Tags: Fife Council, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council

Between 23rd December and 8th January the snowfall equated to about 20mm of rainfall. Over the last couple of days we have had the equivalent of 5mm of rainfall.

All the watercourses are running at low levels at the moment. Fingers crossed for the continued slow thaw so we don’t have any flooding incidents.

Technorati Tags: flooding, rainfall, snowfall

The snowfall over the last couple of days has been the equivalent of about 10mm of rainfall.

Mother Nature has also topped up the snow laying on the ground with another flurry this afternoon.

Luckily the watercourses throughout Freuchie are running pretty low, which is good news from a flooding perspective as we prepare for the snow melt.

Technorati Tags: flooding, Freuchie, Mother Nature, snow

Another lingering effect of the recent flooding manifested itself yesterday afternoon. John Thomson, Freuchie Flood Action Group chairman, discovered he had no hot water or heating. Turns out the flood waters had likely got into the regulator and / or meter mechanism, which then froze up due to the cold snap.

Scotia Gas Networks replaced the meter and regulator within an hour of the fault being logged by the Scottish Gas engineer who came along to investigate the fault. First class service by both Scottish Gas and Scotia Gas Networks.

Technorati Tags: flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Scotia Gas Networks, Scottish Gas

At the Freuchie Community Council meeting last night Cllr MacDiarmid announced the intention of Fife Council to bring forward the work required to reduced the flood risk from water running down and off Freuchie Mill Road. It has been indicated that the work will be completed by February / March 2010.

A few weeks ago council officers came onsite to look at the problem and to start the process of looking into possible solutions. We liaised with these officers and offered our local knowledge and some of our ideas for flood prevention measures. Surveyors are onsite today taking measurements for the Freuchie Mill Road Drainage improvement works. Good progress is now being made on this project.

Thank you to our local councillors and Fife Council officers for recognising the urgency and importance of this work and prioritising it accordingly. This small project is going to make a considerable difference to the flooding issue at Freuchie Mill.

Technorati Tags: Cllr MacDiarmid, Fife Council, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Mill

During the Community Emergency Planning meeting this week,  the community was joined by representatives from Fife Fire & Rescue Service. We cannot stress enough how much value there was in having Tom Fox (Glenrothes Station Manager) and Neil McFarlane (Deputy Chief Fire Officer) come along to the meeting.

Tom delivered an enlightening and informative presentation, during which he covered everything from emergency planning and procedures, operation capacity, health and safety, equipment available to fight back flood waters and many other areas. It is amazing how much information he supplied in only 15 minutes. 

During the Q&A segment, Neil commented:

We (Fire Service personnel) will put our lives on the line to save your life! It is what we sign up to do.

This was certainly a wow moment! The general public know the emergency services routinely go into dangerous situations, but it doesn’t fully strike home the dedication and sense of duty these brave men and women have in the delivery of public service until you’ve heard it from their lips.

It was incredibly sad to see the death of PC Bill Barker in Cumbria while he was serving the local community. His wife’s words reported on the BBC website illustrate his dedication to serve the public. Freuchie Flood Action Group would like to express our immense admiration for PC Barker’s bravery and heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and work colleagues.

Now back to Neil McFarlane for more insightful words:

In times of flood, we must comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act. We have to work safely and minimise the risk to ourselves and the general public. Property owners do not have the same constraints and may well perform actions that we would not be able to do.

Residents must recognise the emergency services are working within the confines of the law of the land. They have the appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the training and have over many years devised safe procedures and systems of work for all the emergency situations they experience. When emergency service personnel instruct residents to perform a certain action it is being done by professionals who assess and deal with life threatening risk every day. Do not ignore these instructions and recommendations or you may end up making the ultimate sacrifice!

FFAG would like to thank both Neil McFarlane and Tom Fox for accepting our invitation to last week’s meeting and Freuchie Community Council for providing the timeslot during the meeting. The information they shared with the community was very enlightening and useful. The whole community looks forward to working more with the outstanding professionals from Fife Fire & Rescue Service in the future, although we do hope it is proactive rather than reactive fire fighting… or maybe that should be flood fighting!

Technorati Tags: Cumbria, Fife, Fife Fire & Rescue Service, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Health and Safety at Work Act, Neil McFarlane, Tom Fox

SEPA has issued a Flood Watch for Fife.

FLOOD WATCH

This statement was prepared on 19 November 2009 at 7:03 am.

A FLOOD WATCH has been issued for Fife and Clackmannanshire rivers.

A band of rain will stagnate over Clackmannanshire today with widespread totals of 25 to 40mm at low levels and 50 to 60mm over the higher ground. As the ground is already saturated localised flooding is expected.

This FLOOD WATCH is now in force until further notice.

Please continue to keep an eye on the situation in your area and listen to local radio and television for further information.

The Met Office has also issued an Advisory of Severe or Extreme Weather for Fife that covers today and tomorrow:

There is a moderate risk of severe weather affecting many western parts of Britain. During Thursday very wet and windy conditions are expected at times with widespread rain and gales in places with winds gusting around 60 MPH. Rain will be heavy at times, especially over windward hills and mountains. Rainfall accumulations of 30 to 50mm are expected through the whole period with locally over 80mm mainly across higher ground.

Issued at: 0645 Thu 19 Nov

The weather forecast over the next 36 hours isn’t too good. Ensure you are prepared to deploy flood defences and you have moved all valuables, and anything else you can’t afford to lose, to an upstairs room or attic.

For those of you who been following our Twitter account, you may have noticed Freuchie Mill residents were heading to Cupar to collect sandbags to dam off Freuchie Mill Road and to fully protect the few homes that haven’t yet got flood doors. We got there to discover Fife Council would rather bring them out to us on this occasion.

FFAG committee members have also inspected sites around the village and further afield to ensure we have a handle on potential flooding. You may well have seen us out at 5am touring the village.

We have discovered the water draining off the railway is causing flooding at the chicken farm, water that ultimately ends up at Freuchie Mill.

Technorati Tags: Cupar, FFAG, Fife Council, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Met Office, SEPA

Webcams are currently being installed in flood risk areas of Freuchie to provide a mechanism for the residents to check from anywhere in the world if flooding is putting their property at risk.

At the moment these are still images captured every 5 minutes. In the near future it will be possible to subscribe to a live feed at a small annual charge.

Freuchie Mill is the first area being covered by this new system. Other areas will be done as finances become available to do the work. If you are interested in sponsoring a camera and have mains power and a wired or wireless broadband network available then we’d be interested in hearing from you.

Checkout the Freuchie Webcam Network.

Technorati Tags: flood, flooding, Freuchie, webcam

At last week’s Community Council meeting, it was agreed to organise a community led emergency planning meeting with a view to looking at how flooding can be responded to by the citizens of Freuchie. This is an extension of an idea put forward recently by Freuchie Flood Action Group.

Freuchie Community Council will be hosting a public meeting this week to start to identify and plan for an improved community response to the current flood risk and future flooding events.

The details of the meeting are:

Venue: Lumsden Memorial Hall

Date & Time: 7pm on Thu 19th Nov

All flood affected and at risk residents are especially welcome, along with Freuchie citizens who would be willing to offer assistance in times of flood emergency. This is very much a meeting of what we can and will be doing in the future and how YOU can help to prevent future flood devastation.

Technorati Tags: emergency planning, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group