A long-running charity contest on the River Don has been called off in order to protect newly-established flood defences built in the wake of Storm Frank.
The annual Garioch Lions raft race will not take place this summer following work to protect properties along the riverbank in Port Elphinstone and Kiethhall, in Inverurie.
The fun event, which raises money for local kidney and cancer research causes, takes place annually between Kemnay Academy’s playing fields and Davidson Park in Port Elphinstone.
The rivers Don and Ythan both reached record highs on January 7, 2016, with the deluge flooding 130 homes and 16 businesses in Inverurie, Port Elphinstone and Kintore; and a further 64 homes and three businesses in Ellon.
More than 600 homes and 100 businesses are estimated to have flooded across Aberdeenshire as a whole during Storm Frank.
Aberdeenshire Council has now rebuilt the Davidson Park bund in Port Elphinstone, which gave way when the Don burst its banks during the floods.
A similar defence has been put in place further down the river at Keithhall by Scottish Water.
And last night the organisers of the raft race said the event would be put on hold until 2018 to allow for the newly-built bund in place at Davidson Park to settle.
They had feared that rafts being dragged on top of the defence may have wrecked it, given it had only recently been completed.
Jim Souter, president of the Garioch Lions, said: “It is off for a year because the flooding at Port Elphinstone they put up new flood defence barriers, a new bund. There is new meshing just underneath the surface.
“We were worried we were going to damage something there. Rather than doing any damage we decided to cancel. We had a site visit ourselves.
“We were 99% sure ourselves but contacted the council and Scottish Water who agreed. Us being a community group, we thought what is more important – the raft race or people’s properties and homes?
“We’d have felt very bad if we’d done any damage. We used to pull them out over the bund. Next year it should be settled.”
The Garioch Lions began running the raft race 26 years ago, before which it was held by local man Donald Ingram.
Mr Souter also asked that the winners of last year’s raft race hand back the trophy to the Kintore Trophy Centre in Inverurie in May, as had been agreed last year.