Deal-breaking talks for a Mearns town’s £16.5million flood protection plans will enter their final stage today.
Scottish Government reporter, Martin Seddon, is currently in Stonehaven to consider the proposals drawn up by Aberdeenshire Council to prevent a future deluge causing destruction to the community.
The Stonehaven Flood Protection Scheme was backed by the local authority’s infrastructure services committee in January 2016 despite 12 unresolved objections.
Homes were devastated in Stonehaven in 2009 and 2012 when the River Carron burst its banks, and local people have called for protective measures ever since.
Although Holyrood said it was satisfied with the designs which were being developed, it asked the council to call a hearing in the town – allowing for the objections to be considered.
Four of the 12 objections have subsequently been resolved.
The meetings began on Tuesday at Stonehaven’s St James Church Hall and are being overseen by Mr Seddon, with a number of locals giving representations.
The project would bring new culverts, glass-topped flood walls about 6.5ft high and a new embankment along the watercourse.
The river’s Red Bridge could be replaced, the Green Bridge moved, the White Bridge elevated and the Beach Bridge strengthened.
Mr Seddon will hand his findings from the hearing to the council, following the hearing. He can recommend approving the scheme, rejecting it or consenting it with modifications.
Deputy-chairman of the Stonehaven Flood Action Group, Will Munro, yesterday toured the flood-prone areas of the town with the reporter.
He said: “I felt overall the hearing and the reporter has been very open, and very accommodating in letting people speak and put their points across.
“The Flood Action Group made a statement at the beginning of the hearing. The group wants the scheme to go ahead whether with modifications or otherwise. That is up to the reporter.
“We could go through two or three more flood seasons before protection is in place.
“It is disappointing how long the process has been. Our hope as a flood action group and as a community overall is for this to go ahead.”
Mr Munro – whose home was flooded in 2009, but survived the 2012 downpour – added the group wanted a scheme in place “as quickly as possible”.
He said: “As a flood victim, the danger of flooding has quite an emotional and psychological effect on some.”
The council’s project manager and principal engineer for the scheme, Rachel Kennedy, added: “I think the hearing has been well attended, it is about due process and democracy.