A Perthshire tourism business is coming to terms with the £3 million loss of one of its main assets in the devastating floods.
Wood Leisure of Blairgowrie spent eight years building up the Deeside Holiday Park at Maryculter west of Aberdeen.
The 12-acre site was swept away by the floodwaters of the nearby River Dee, with Storm Frank’s raging downstream torrents engulfing it twice in a week.
Up to 60 static caravans, the same number of touring pitches, holiday lodges and facility blocks have been lost.
Partner Sarah Wood MacGregor said: “The whole park has been ruined.
“Everything we have done to build it up has gone, and we will have to start it all over again.
“We are insured and have had discussions with the loss adjusters.
“The initial assessment has put the cost of the damage to the site at £3 million.
“We are now waiting for the water to go away completely so that we can rebuild the site and have it open for the summer season.”
She continued: “This has been a nightmare for us and for many of our customers.
“Some of them were to be spending the New Year holiday at the park, and their plans were ruined.”
The Deeside park, on the south bank of the river, is one of five belonging to Wood Leisure, winner of the family business of the year prize in The Courier Business Awards of 2015.
The other sites are at Blairgowrie, Lomond Woods, Corriefoldy and Campsie Glen.
Colin and Margaret Wood purchased Blairgowrie Holiday Park almost 30 years ago and built the business up to achieve VisitScotland five-star status.
With the other parks coming into the fold, the company was rebranded Wood Leisure and daughters Rachel, Kirsty and Sarah came into the business.
Major investment at Deeside included raising the flood defences to above the level of the previous highest flood 14 years ago.
Sarah continued: “On December 30 the water came right over the top very quickly.
“We evacuated from around 1.45pm with the last couple being lifted by helicopter. By 2.30pm water breached the flood defences and by 3pm most of the park was submerged.
“We were issued with a red warning from Sepa, the environment agency, only at 5pm when all of the park was under water.
“That was bad enough but the water started to drain away. We were tidying things up and assessing the damage when on January 4 the water poured in again.”
The floods wreaked havoc on both sides of the river with Deeside Golf Club almost completely submerged.
Although it continued to rain throughout Deeside last week, the level of the River Dee fell back and coming into the weekend Sepa removed the flood warning status.
The environment agency warned that standing water was still evident on open land and roads. There were also many areas where the ground was still saturated, presenting a risk of flooding.
A drop in temperature turned the rain to snow, changing the hazard and creating an extra difficulty for the Woods in their clear-up efforts.