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Hello, my name is Sue Roaf. Iím Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot-Watt
University, and weíre making this video to try and help you think about new ways in which
you can flood-proof your own buildings and communities. This is because with climate
change weíre getting more & more extreme weather year-on-year. December this year was
the coldest December on record, for 366 years in the UK. April was the driest ever. And
being sensible, weíll have to think about ways to reduce the risk of damage in our own
lifestyles, in our homes, in our offices over time. So weíve come to Moray Council, to
the city of Elgin, which is one of the most flooded cities in Britain, to see if we can
find out how they do it and learn from them. In order to look at flooding in more detail,
weíve come to Elgin in Moray, one of the most flood-prone towns in Scotland, and weíre
going to meet Peter Haslam whoís Director of the Moray Flood Alleviation project to
find out how theyíre dealing with the project on the scale of the city.
Peter, thank you very much for talking us today. Weíd be really interested to hear
what your position is in Moray Council, and then tell us about the sort of risks being
experienced from flooding in Elgin at the moment.
Hi, Iím Peter Haslam. Iím the project manager for Elgin Flood Alleviation Scheme. Risk in
flooding is a combination of the probability of an event happening, and the consequences
of that event happening. With Elgin Flood Alleviation Scheme, we started work about
the year 2000 and we investigated the 3 generic options that are usually considered when looking
at flood prevention schemes. One was attenuation through flood damns, or storage damns, upstream
of Elgin. Another was a diversion channel via the Spiney Canal. And the 3rd option,
the one that we have chosen, was initially called ìWalls & Embankmentsî, but strictly
speaking itís a sustainable flood corridor that will go through Elgin. It will widen
the watercourse from its natural channel with embankments principally, and will allow flood
water to expand into the flood plan but not completely take up the flood plain.
Can you tell us what projects youíve got actually ongoing in Moray to alleviate flood
risk in the area? Yeah, we are looking at works on about 3 miles
of watercourse, and the total cost of the civil engineering works is about £50m.
Thatís a lot of money. The projectís well underway now, I believe youíve got the funding
agreed by the Scottish Government, so I just wondered if youíd be kind enough to explain
what the alleviation schemes will be like, and how youíre going to use them to protect
the people of Elgin? Going through Elgin, we will be replacing
some bridges with what you might call ëbottlenecksí, with bigger-spanned bridges, and also in one
particular location there will be a flood relief channel that will come into operation
at about ì1 in 50 yearsî. The design itself is based on ì1 in 200 yearsî plus an allowance
of 500mm on the embankments to allow water to stay ìin-bankî, without over-topping
the banks at the design standard. The reason that this is important is because if embankments
do get over-topped, this can lead to rapid erosion of the embankment and subsequently
breaching. So how many people, or how many houses are
this project going to save? The project is designed at ì1 in 200yearsî
to protect around 600 homes and in excess of 200 businesses.
Thatís an awful lot, were there always this many buildings that were at risk?
No, the buildings at risk have been developed over a period of, perhaps the last 200-300
years, slowly reaching the point now where there are too many buildings in what would
be the River Lossie flood plain. So does that mean that thereís any plans
to pull the ones that are most at risk back from the flood plain in ëmanaged retreatí?
Not in Elgin, there are a few buildings that we will be demolishing in order to widen the
watercourse and allow the watercourse to use some of the floodplain. So we will be taking
down some homes & businesses, I think about 5 or 6 homes and maybe 15-20 businesses. All
of the businesses will be relocated elsewhere within industrial areas close by.
And as most of the people watching this film are going to be developers, architects and
builders, would you give us the benefit of your advice on how to protect buildings that
are on the flood plain or are going to be built on a flood plain?
The first thing I would recommend is donít build on a flood plain, and certainly we were
talking earlier about the potential for ëmanaged retreatí from a flood plain, and certainly
where the risk of flooding is higher, then thereís a good argument for ëmanaged retreatí
from a flood plain such that housing development is more towards the foothills type of development.
Where people have a good reason to be on a flood plain, I think people who have to live
in a flood plain such as farmers and the like, then thereís perhaps good reason to look
at areas where development can take place. I think if you look at old natural flood plains
youíll find that quite often the older houses are on little old sand-dunes. Youíll often
see old farm-houses on small hills within a flood plain, probably being caused by wind
at some stage. I donít know if youíre familiar with this area, if you look at the flood plains
here during the Spring time, the soils are very light so they get blown about quite a
lot. Yeah, you often see those small hills that are maybe 2 or 3 metres higher than the
general flood plain itself. And thatís a good place to build a house.
What are the insurance implications of this project?
Well firstly, if people are looking to buy homes, they can phone me up and I will write
a report on a property, explaining what the potential risk is to the property and what
actions the council may be planning that may reduce that risk. I occasionally get questions
from insurance companies about this too and I give them similar advice. We have flood
risk maps and we will be improving the quality of our flood risk mapping with the work that
we are planning to do shortly under the 2009 Flood Risk Management Act. When we have finished
schemes at Lhanbryde down in the Burn of Mosset in Forres, I have written to insurance companies,
The Association of British Insurers, and explained to them that weíve carried out a project,
weíve finished it, and what the standard of defence is that the project was designed
to. Well, thank you very much Peter. Thatís been
absolutely fascinating, it will be of great use to our viewers.
So this is the apparently benign Lossie River that causes so much damage. Some 1000 buildings
are threatened by its flooding now, but the Moray Flood Alleviation programme is going
ahead now. Contracts have been signed, buildings are being pulled down, you can see here trees
have been taken down too, and within a short period all of these industrial buildings will
be demolished to extend the flood plain and build the new protective banks. So now letís
go and meet David Gowans whoës going to tell us about the Scottish Legislative Framework
within which all of this activity is happening. Well David, thank you very much for coming
in on your day off and weíd be grateful if youíd tell us about the Scottish Legislative
Framework on flooding that youíve had a hand in developing?
My role in Elgin is Project Director for the Moray Flood Schemes, which is £160m worth
of flood protection work across 5 communities in Moray, and weíre well through the programme
now but a lot still to do. Iím also chair of the Scottish Councilís flooding group
and in that role Iím the Councillorís representative on the Scottish Governmentís policy management
group for the new flooding legislation, thatís the Flood Risk Management Scotland Act of
2009. Now that Act is a long time in coming. And a couple of thrusts here. One is that
Scotland had to implement the EC Flood Directive and bring it into Scots Law, as all member
countries have to do. And secondly, Ministers wanted to try and speed up the flow of flood
schemes because statutory processes were taking so long. Iíve been involved right through
the implementation of the act, following on from advising Government on the actual drafting
of the act in the first place. Now the Act itself is a framework. It doesnít actually
provide very much in the way of firm guidance as to how we take things forward, so the actual
implementation is quite tricky and thereís a lot of work going on just now through Councils,
through Scottish Water and SEPA and Scottish Government to provide the guidance, and itís
beginning to come out thick and fast now. Itís going to change how we manage flooding,
it changes the whole concept and the whole way of thinking. Weíve got to think on a
catchment basis now, itís not just simply a case of treating the symptoms. Weíve got
to look at the causes, so that means looking at whole catchments, how can we slow down
the flow? How can we better use flood plains? And ultimately, how can we defend our key
assets? It looks at all forms of flooding, not just rivers. We have pluvial flooding
from thunderstorms & so on, sewer flooding, and of course coastal flooding, and this Act
combines all of these and makes us look at everything. The framework, Iíll try to explain
as briefly as I can, there will be a flood risk assessment from SEPA, thatís based on data that they can gather quickly
and readily. Theyíve been collecting a lot of information from local government and Scottish
Water and from their own resources to create flood maps of Scotland. We then have to carry
out a Flood Hazard Assessment of Scotland, which looks at water velocities and depths
of flooding. These will inform flood risk management planning areas, for example you
will have a flood risk management, planning area the size of the River Tay catchment,
and maybe slightly larger than that even, which will combine a number of authorities,
Scottish Water, probably the Forestry Commission, and SEPA. There will be a national plan and
local plans, which will have to be developed, consulted upon during 2015 for implementation
at the end of 2015 on a 6-year cycle. The plans have to be resourced and agreed by all
of the parties involved, so you may have 8 authorities, SEPA and Scottish Water all involved
in one plan. So itís exciting times ahead as we go forward and develop this and take
a much more pro-active approach to flooding. We represent the built environment, do you
think that the stakeholders here, the planners, developers, architects, builders, do you think
they have a good enough handle? Do you think that the interaction between the flood experts
and us out there in the buildings field is good enough, and what would you say is the
key bridge? Would you say for us to go to the SEPA website, or do you think its planning
legislation? Do you think that relationshipís working?
Itís a complex subject. The situation is improving, thereís absolutely no doubt about
that. Itís much more difficult to obtain planning consent now for flood-risk areas
for example. Planning authorities are much tighter on that, and SEPA as a consultee are
much tighter on it too. Itís a broad subject, weíve got to look at flooding and how we
deal with existing flood risk too, to existing properties. The Act doesnít say we have to
protect every property because resources are thin and we canít possibly protect everything.
We have to look at the resilience of properties, we have to look at acceptance of flooding,
flood warning, all sorts of different tools we can use to protect properties, and developers
have to be conscious of all of those things. One of the areas I would like to see improved
is that, for example in Elgin weíve had several hundred properties that have flooded at least
twice over the last 12 or 13 years. Each time theyíve been repaired and put back exactly
as they are, and every time theyíre flooded, the damage is as bad as it was before and
the whole houses have to be gutted and itís almost ëstart from scratchí. To me it seems
silly that we donít build them in a way that theyíre more resistant to flooding, stone
floors, high electrics and so on. Now of course, the insurance industry is withdrawing
systematically, insurance opportunities for high risk houses. How are you going to deal
in this community with that challenge, because surely doesnít that bring on flood blight
for different areas. Insurance has always been a very difficult
area. There has been agreement between the Government and the Association of British
Insurers to provide flood insurance, but increasingly weíre finding from our stakeholders that
it can be more & more difficult to get flood insurance, and premiums & excesses are much
higher. This film will be going out to people in the
built environment, so thatís planners, architects, builders and a whole range of stakeholders.
I wonder if you would be kind enough to give us some advice on how to make our buildings
and settlements more resilient to flooding events.
Thereís lots of information on SEPAís website on both flood protection, flood protection
products, and on how to make your buildings more resilient. The Scottish Flood Forum is
doing a lot of good work there too in trying to educate people and raise awareness of flooding,
and flooding issues so that people are better informed and know what they can do.
Is the sort of flood liaison groups where youíre getting all the stakeholders together
in one community? The Scottish Flood Forum is a group to represent
people who flood in affected communities who flood, and theyíre becoming quite active
now in a number of areas in promoting local flood groups. For example, if you have small
communities, it tends to work better in small communities which are at flood risk. Then
the Scottish Flood Forum have been encouraging groups to form, self-help groups for example
that will assist with what to do in an event of a flood, how to reduce flood damages and
the like. David, thank you very much for this fascinating
talk which weíve gained a lot from. We really appreciate that.
Thank you This morning we looked with Moray Flood Prevention
programme and engineered ways of preventing flooding in Elgin, but now weíre going to
go with Gavin George and look at ways in which we can build protection at the level of individual
buildings, so welcome Gavin, thanks for coming. My pleasure. My ignorance perhaps but I had
not heard of Elgin up until about 10 years ago when I came into the flood protection
industry. I then looked at a few facts, things like the fact that it had lost £100m on one
of its major floods. And then I made a visit here, meeting the people and seeing the amount
of devastation in the city, I found quite unbelievable.
Great, this is a good point at which we actually go and look at how we can protect people and
buildings from flooding. Anybody looking round Elgin will soon realise
the extent of the flooding problem, but also the extent of what has been done here several
years ago. Paid for by the Council or by private owners, thereís in excess of 400 properties
here just with the Floodguard systems alone, plus dozens & dozens more with other systems.
And now we can go and visit one particular resident who has the system, and look at it
in detail. There are hundreds of businesses vulnerable
to flooding. Sometimes itís not enough to rely on Government of local authorities to
provide your flood protections. Sometimes you have to take responsibility for your own
assets. So, this is an example of what can be done by a business, particularly a business
who perhaps are seeing increases in premium and excess for their insurance. Itís a very
simple approach, itís blocking doorways. In this case weíre using a Kitemark flood
protection for the front door and for the airbricks which Iíll give you a demonstration
of now. There are 2 elements, first of all thereís a back-frame which is fitted to the
property, normally to be as much as possible aesthetically in keeping with the property.
And secondly thereís a cover, a barrier which is put in place at the time when a flood is
imminent or when thereís a warning of a flood. Clearly with this type of device, it does
rely on some degree of warning or the property owner taking a fairly precautionary approach
in having the defences in place prior to a flood coming along.
So what Iíd like to do now is to demonstrate how straight forward this particular system
is. Now the aperture has been protected, should
flood water come against that system, then it will not enter through that doorway. Now
the doorway is protected, and the same would be true for the other doors and for the airbricks,
thereís no guarantee that water will not enter. So this is where we need to look at
other areas where the water might migrate into the internals of the building. So we
could be looking at routes under the flooring, routes through the brickwork, routes through
the drainage, and all of these can be addressed but itís not enough to have a barrier on
its own on the doorway, it needs to be complemented with the additional measures. The ironic thing
here is that despite using airbrick covers & door barriers, this property was not affected,
even in the worst flood floods of the last decade. The reason that the property owner
invested in the floodguards is simply that they are situated in IV30, and that means
that in most cases that the insurance deals arenít very good. Because this system is
accredited, because itís kite-marked, because it has been installed by professionals, it
does mean that there is a positive response by insurers in most cases. In some cases it
means you can get insurance cover when otherwise you wouldnít be able to get it. In most cases
it means a reduction to either the premium and/or the excess.
Sometimes protecting an individual property is not an option. This may be because of the
excessive structural load imparted by a very deep flood. It could be because of the duration
of the flood, allowing water to permeate through other routes. In those cases, or sometimes
because of the nature of the property itself, it may be appropriate to protect a whole site.
This is an example here of protecting an entire site. After the flood of 2004 the business
owner here made an insurance claim of £1m. Because of the extent of the claim and what
was coming down the road in terms of the next insurance deal, the business owner decided
that he had to provide his own protection again. In this case it is on the perimeter,
so it is a good example showing walls supported by embankments, and in this area here we have
final closure, using our ëwrap-a-damí system. So the wrap-a-dam, which is normally rolled
up as a membrane stored in the workshop, will be brought to site, rolled out, bolted down
and in place within about 5-10 minutes. That will then provide protection for the perimeter
complemented by non-return valves which protect the drainage from backflow and also using
sump pumps, so that water that falls within this area, or which have permeated up through
the grounds can be evacuated to the flooded side. So hereís another example of insurance
being a prime driver towards getting protection for the site.
These properties are known as the ëWar-Vetsí cottages and theyíre occupied by elderly
people from the time of the war. As you can see, theyíre all protected with the floodguards,
and the council in this case will come out and put the guards in place and evacuate the
occupants. Mr McKenzie, thanks for talking to us.
Pleasure Youíve told us that youíve flooded four
times, can you tell us what thatís like? Well itís difficult to tell, itís very traumatic.
You canít really put it in words, itís just really devastating, you lose everything every
time. In three major floods weíve lost practically everything in the ground floor each time.
And how long have you been out of your home for?
Well, usually between 9 months and a year, because renovation takes that long, drying
it out etc. I see youíve taken some measures to try and
protect yourself, how effective were those? Virtually ineffective, they just donít work.
Even the council spent money on their properties and the water comes in whether youíve got
protection or not. How does the water come in?
It comes up through the floors, through your access, your water pipes, your drains, it
just comes up through there and thereís no way you can stop that.
In some cases if you have water coming through your floors, itís possible to pump the water
away. Have you tried that? Well, I donít know if you could get pumps
that would pump it out as quickly as itís coming in. I donít know that much about hydraulics,
but we couldnít afford to install pumps anyway that would do that job.
Talking about cost, as youíve had so much flooding here, what sort of implications has
it been for your insurance. Well at the moment Iím paying £1700 a year
for insurance. What can I say? Weíve tried to get insurance help but nobody will look
at us. The company weíre with, to keep us on if weíll pay the price that they ask,
and at the moment itís £1700 a year. Now the Council is planning to protect this
whole area, do the insurers not recognise thatís coming on stream
Well as far as I can tell, this is IV30, and they say ëweíre not going to insure anyone
in IV30í unless you live on the hills, but in this area nobody will look at us. I have
insurance but as I say, itís costing me £1700 a year.
Best practice in some parts of the UK now is to have a surveyor actually identify how
water would enter your property, and to identify what needs to be done. In your case that might
typically suggest some pumps, it might suggest some reconstruction of the floor, especially
if you were to flood again. Now if that happened, would you be in a financial position to invest
again, or does the insurance premium and other associated costs sort of preclude there?
Well, I donít know the costs, Iíve never really had anybody look at if thereís any
way that we could really stop the water coming in here, but I would assume that it would
cost a lot of money. More than we could afford as pensioners.
So if someone from the government or the local authority was to offer that, would that be
something that would offer you some ray light? Oh yeah of course, any aid in not getting
flooded. Pumps may be the answer but I canít see pumps being the answer when the water
levelís up about here. The last flooding it was over the wall, thatís all I can say.
The water doesnít actually come from the river, it comes down the roads from elsewhere.
The area doesnít flood here from the river, not actually bursting its banks here; itís
from further up by the cathedral. It comes rushing down here and sits in this big hole
here. Itís bad design, this is an old flood plain anyway.
And how do you feel about the council scheme that theyíre delivering?
If it works itís a Godsend if it works, but I donít know. I just couldnít really tell,
itís very difficult. But I dread getting another flood, Iím 70 years old and I canít
put in words. Not another time! Our traditional means of fighting flooding
have been to build embankments or build walls, diverting water-courses, sometimes daming
upstream. Weíre all of course familiar with the emergency measure which is the good old
sandbag, perhaps a legacy of Word War 1. But now floodguards have been around for more
than 10 years, utilising the Arch dam principal, lightweight plastic barriers. But is that
really where technology will stop? Iím involved in an EU funded project which looks at new
technologies for flood protection. This will include automatic or passive systems. There
are some systems that will rise out of the ground or flip up automatically. Great idea,
you need to be aware about the maintenance issues, about the risk of non-deployment,
and also the fact that some people even today would prefer systems where they manually actually
put them in place and have that assurance that they are sealed. Another thing thatís
coming to the market are flood doors. Flood doors as a concept are great as theyíre a
passive means of protection. Youíd expect them to be normally in place rather than someone
lugging a barrier in place, but they do have to be treated with caution. With a floodguard
for instance, and other demountables which are available today, if the water should go
beyond 2 or 3 feet, or whatever the height of the barrier, then it will enter the property
and the depth of the water internally & externally will eventually equalise. With a flood door
thereís the potential for protection to the full height. Should that happen then there
is a risk in extreme floods of excessive loadings on the property which could cause structural
damage, and in the most severe cases collapse, which obviously would not be welcome, particularly
if thereís occupants in the building. So there weíre moving from the risk to property,
to the risk to life & limb. Another risk with flood doors also is the risk of someone actually
opening the door, unaware that thereís perhaps 2 feet of flood water on the outside. If that
should happen then the consequences donít bear thinking about.
Many homes and industrial buildings will be demolished as part of the Elgin Flood Alleviation
Scheme, for instance all of these buildings will go as part of the flood alleviation scheme.
Sandy Reidís garage will remain. Weíre going to talk to Sandy now about his ideas about
the future of the Elgin scheme. Thank you Sandy, now youíve got Sandy Reidís
garage next-door. Can you tell us a little about the flooding history of this particular
property. 2002, there was a big flood but it never actually
came into this building. 2 inches higher and it would have come in. 2007, the water everywhere
was supposed to be a foot higher and it came in here. Then in 2009, the water actually
went past here but didnít come in that time either.
And how has that affected for instance insurance on this property?
Well we got insurance the last time, we might get insurance if we get flooded again but
that will definitely be the last. But weíve also to find £15,000 - £25,000 excess if
we get flooded again. And what about renting out this particular
unit? Has that been more difficult? It has been difficult, thereís 2 or 3 empty
at the moment and they have been for the last few years. Nobody wants to rent in case it
gets flooded. And what are the plans? All those buildings
behind you are going to get pulled down but youíre staying are you?
Weíre staying, weíre the only building left on this side.
And thereís been some concerns that the height of the water every time seems to rise. What
about new developments on the flood plains? Theyíre still building on flood plains. Theyíre
actually building some of the ground up, which is actually making things worse on this side
if we get any more flooding. And have you actually asked your insurers
if with all this new flood scheme, your premiums will go down?
No, weíve never asked them that. And they havenít said with the new flood
scheme in place........ Theyíve never mentioned it, no.
In terms of the way forward, do you have confidence, you obviously hope the scheme will work?
Do I have confidence in it working? No, because the flood plains that they are building on
are on the Lossieís way out of Elgin. Theyíre building the ground up on that land to build
houses, theyíre planning hotels, industrial sites yards away from the River Lossie.
And youíve lived in Elgin for many years too, for instance, the houses over the road,
they flood too now donít they? Yes, they have done for years.
Have you developed a plan of action or are you just putting your trust in God here?
Weíll just have to play along with whatever happens.
Well thank you very much Sandy and good luck with it all.
Well we have Mike Donaghy here with us today and he is an independent environmental consultant
whoís been instrumental in framing the Scottish flooding legislation. So thank you for coming
Mike, and could you tell us exactly what it is that the 2009 Flood Risk Management Act
of Scotland actually does? What it does it is it empowers a wide range
of people to further protect the people in Scotland from severe floods. There was always
a group of people whose job it was to protect you from floods. What this act does now is
in a sustainable, long-term way, working with other people at a catchment level, it brings
everyone together, gets them talking to each other about how do we deal with this problem,
and it also gives them even more tools in their toolbox to help them sort those problems
out, take measures to cut down the flood risk to people and to property throughout Scotland.
Thatís very interesting because going round Elgin weíve been talking to a lot of different
people and some of them feel quite disconnected from the whole process, and this must in a
way add to the fear that people experience, because weíve seen people who have really
been fairly traumatised by the flood experience that theyíve had. How is it exactly we can
achieve sustainable flood management? How do we achieve it? Well thereís lots of
ways we can achieve it. When you mention fear felt by people, thatís what itís about.
Itís about removing that fear, and the way you do that is by empowering people, by engaging
with them, listening to them, finding out what they would like out of this whole process.
So, sustainable flood management works in a very straight forward way. It uses the catchment
as your unit, so where does the flooding arise in the catchment, where does it have its impact?
What routes do the floods take to get to where you have your impact? Who are actually impacted?
What can we do about that? And the tools start to appear, things like better planning. Hereís
an idea, donít build on a flood plain. Allow the river to expand and store itself into
flood plains. Thatís all you can do with water, either store it or move it through.
But if you move it through and itís all you choose to do, youíre simply moving the problem
somewhere else, so allow the river space. And also, letís look at what planning laws
allow us to build houses so that we can keep away from areas where we put people at risk,
and that brings in people like developers. Developers may see a piece of land and they
think ëoh great, that would be fantastic to make some money fromí. Society can pick
the expense of protecting them from flooding. Well, developers and others have to look at
their own responsibilities there. So how do you do sustainable flood management? At the
catchment? Looking at all the various components that make up the flood? Whoís involved? What
professionals are involved, and get them all talking to each other about where houses go
in, where the rivers need space. Look upstream, what sort of land management is taking place
that may actually add to the problem? So one of the components of sustainable flood management
is natural flood management, but itís largely to do with land use. Have the trees all been
removed? Have the bogs been drained? Have the streams been straightened? Could we start
looking now at where we could re-meander rivers, restore wetlands & bogs, put in riparian,
trees that grow next to the river, and slow it down whenever it floods, and start looking
at the compensation schemes that could be paid to land managers to allow them to become
involved in this, and thatís what the Flood Risk Management Act actually does.
Well as design professionals, many of us have been taught that if you use sustainable urban
drainage schemes like SUDS, we think that the problem might go away. But here in Elgin,
theyíve actually decreed that they will not accept any more SUDS because of course, SUD
schemes donít work in flood plains. And also weíre told that if we build flood-resilliant
buildings, then itís ok to build on the flood plains, but the buildings weíve seen show
that thereís no way any construction-type could actually survive that severity of flooding.
So what is it that building design professionals can actually do to alleviate the flood risk?
Before they do anything technical, what they have to do is realise their own responsibility
for protecting the very people that will live in these buildings, work in them, or use whatever
structure youíre going to be designing & building, so itís your responsibility to make sure
youíre not building or producing something which will effectively bring harm to people.
The next thing is, start talking to your other professionals about how you can make this
all work. Ask is this area, or would a building put there be at flood risk? If it is going
to be, you have to say ëwhy are you putting it there?í. If it has got to go there, can
we make sure people are fully aware of this, and can we do everything we can to make sure
people can live there with 2 main aims? No harm comes to them, and that if there is a
flood, then they can recover from it very quickly.
There is some confusion about who is actually liable if things flood, for instance we know
under English Law, Ashurt vs Medway Homes (1987), if a developer puts a development
in the flood plain and it floods, the people can actually sue the developer because itís
not fit for purpose. And here weíve heard people saying, if this all goes ahead, for
instance in Elgin, and then we flood, because theyíre frightened that that will happen,
then we can sue Elgin for putting us in more danger. Is there a legal pre-course?
There is but youíd never want to get to that position, youíd want to avoid that position.
But letís just say you havenít avoided that position, then if you can prove the actions
of someone else has led to you being flooded, then youíre perfectly in the law to get recompensed
for that. However a much, much better position to take is to avoid it in the first place.
That was one of the basic tenants of the Scottish Governmentís flood policy was avoidance,
letís see if we can just avoid having floods. So itís taking the longer view, itís not
about getting as many houses as quickly as possible so people can make lots of money.
Itís about sustainable communities, itís about people living without fear within that
catchment for a long, long time. Weíve seen here in Elgin a number of houses,
for instance we interviewed Mr McKenzie, and thereís a few houses in that particular part
of town. It seemed to be the most humane thing to pull them all down and move those occupants
to somewhere safe. Is that a credible alternative? Of course it is, I donít know the details
of this and I donít know why they came to that decision but thatís actually not uncommon
throughout the rest of the world where you look to see, economically is it worth this
actually doing this? Is the risk which these people are living too high? So we just remove
the risk, give the river back its space as a long-term solution and try and look at providing
homes within the community for the people that have been displaced.
Well, thank you very much. I think before we have seen a number of ways, weíve seen
the engineered solutions, weíve seen the building level solutions, and now weíre looking
at almost natural flood management, which seems to be possibly, from a number of people
that weíve spoken to, the way that the Scottish Government is going and it seems that that
offers the most hope. But one thing sure, as people in Elgin know, you canít fight
a catastrophic flood. No you canít, and the real hope is that the
Scottish legislation is extremely advanced, modern legislation, and it already allows
for natural flood management to make its contribution to the overall aims.
Mike Donaghy, thank you very much indeed.