The Duke of Rothesay met people involved in the recovery from Storm Arwen on a visit to an Aberdeenshire country park that was left devastated by extreme weather.
Between 500,000 and one million trees were uprooted on the Haddo Estate at the end of last November, as winds of up to 100mph whipped the north-east.
Efforts to clear the once-dense woodlands of fallen trees ahead of replanting have only just begun.
Charles spoke to landscape manager Oliver Deeming and head of visitor services Susanna Atkinson as he walked the ‘Scots Mile’ road towards the National Trust for Scotland property at the centre of the estate, Haddo House.
Last month, the same road was completely blocked by fallen timber, now piled high by the side – with some trunks a metre in diameter.
The destruction is being taken as an opportunity by the estate team, though.
Mr Deeming said the previous “green desert” of largely homogenous species would be replaced with “thousands of native trees, with a myriad of different seeds” for the native red squirrel population.
Scale of Storm Arwen on Prince Charles’ mind
At the house, the prince met people from Aberdeenshire Council, the police and power provider SSEN to hear about the impact of Storm Arwen and the state of recovery.
He asked Mark Rough, SSEN operations director, about the scale of the event and the challenges of access to make repairs and assess damage.
Mr Rough said: “I’ve been with the company for over 35 years, and I certainly haven’t seen anything as severe as Storm Arwen.
“Not just the direction of the storm, but it was more the actual severity of the winds and the duration of that period as well.
“We had 19 hours of winds that were over 60mph right down the east coast of Scotland.”
Site remains closed to visitors
Charles also met with leading figures in the community response, including Ythanview owner Jay Allen who opened his Methlick hotel to people left without power, and homeowners such as Malcolm Munro, who had no access to electricity or water for a week.
Mr Munro, who lives on the Haddo estate with his wife and three children, said: “It was quite a long week.
“There was no access onto the estate for the first day or two – you couldn’t get off until the trees were cut.”
The site is currently closed off to visitors for safety reasons as work continues. A local said Charles’s visit was the first day for some time that the sound of chainsaws was not ringing out around the area.
Aberdeenshire Council believe walkers may be able to return to Haddo Country Park by late spring, though only small areas will be opened up at a time as some parts will still be too dangerous.
