Despute the quick response by bodies including Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Tayside Fire and Rescue and Perth and Kinross Council, a storm of criticism has followed the weekend’s flooding.
Residents at Huntingtowerfield and Errol have hit out at the council for failing to deal with related issues that have been brought up in the last 12 months.
Conservative MSP for North Tayside and Fife Liz Smith claims that the collapse of the south bank of the River Almond behind Almond Grove is proof of this.
She said emergency action should have been taken “some time ago” to install adequate flood defences at the area near Huntingtower Castle, after being contacted by residents about areas of the bank collapsing on Saturday, destroying parts of a public path and the edges of back gardens of three houses.
Ms Smith said, “The residents were very concerned that weekend staffing shortages in the council had meant no one could be on site when the damage first occurred and so they decided, quite rightly, that there was an urgent need to close off the path at either end of the damaged section.”
She praised the locals for doing a “great job” with lengths of tape and ribbon, as well as standing on the path to warn of the danger ahead.
However, she said the situation should “never” have been allowed to happen as the local authority had received plenty of warning.
Ms Smith said, “Notwithstanding the recent abnormally bad weather, these residents have been trying to get some action from the council and environmental authorities for two and a half years but nothing constructive ever seems to happen.
“I took up their case in October last year and since then I, too, have not had a satisfactory answer…”
She added, “My most recent reply suggests the report of the mitigation scheme is due ‘sometime early this year’ but none of us knows what this means and now it is too late.”
Meanwhile, just over a mile away at Tarry Row in Ruthvenfield, residents are blaming emergency efforts to clear the A85 for their flooding problems.’Reckless’One resident, who did not want to be named, told The Courier that, rather than diverting the water into nearby fields, the new trenches only took it down the road past Huntingtower Castle and into their homes.
He added that the homes are “nowhere near” the River Almond, so this could not be the source of their problems.
In Errol the council has come under fire for “recklessly ignoring” advice from the community council about building homes on the flat lands at Grange.
Former secretary Michael Almond claimed the new housing had been left “marooned,” with at least one property being flooded.
He said, “This is something which had never happened previously in all my 20 years of residence here and it is clear that the building of the new houses is at least partially, and probably mainly, to blame.
“Instead of standing in the fields and soaking away gradually, the water runs quickly off the roofs and roadways of a housing development.
“In addition to this, it is more than likely that the building work has disrupted the old and intricate system of drainage in place in the Carse.”
However, despite the grievances raised by locals, the multi-agency response team has been praised for working “very effectively” to provide help and support.
MSP for North Tayside John Swinney said, “The different public bodies have worked very effectively together to provide assistance to members of the public who have been affected by a quite extraordinary period of winter weather.”
A spokeswoman for Perth and Kinross Council said that over the weekend the authority had closed most of the flood gates that form Perth’s flood defence scheme and would continue to monitor water levels as predicted by SEPA.