A petition from an Aberdeenshire village, calling for greater flood defences after Storm Frank, has been inundated with local support.
The plea, which has been signed by virtually every Kemnay resident, has now been delivered to the local authority.
Residents have backed a petition, initiated by Kembhill Park residents, for the creation of a flood barrier along the River Don to protect them against future deluges.
About 50 parents, anxious about further flooding at the Alehousewells School, have also signed the petition along with residents of Bremner Way – which was badly hit by the deluge.
Kembhill Park residents are hoping that a bund which stops at a local pumping station, neighbouring their houses, can be extended along the River Don.
They claim it was this gap in the flood defence, which caused the river’s waters to flow into their homes, engulfing around 20 of them on January 7.
The Kembhill Park Flood Prevention and Resilience Group who launched the petition, yesterday handed it over to co-leader of Aberdeenshire council, Councillor Martin Kitts-Hayes.
Chairman of the Flood Prevention and Resilience Group, Ken Ledingham, said: “We wanted support from all the residents in Kembhill Park and didn’t extend the petition any further.
“We wanted to be very specific about where the problem was.
“It was intended to show the council that all of the residents in the park were fully in support of the ideas we put into the petition.
“We were never going for hundreds of signatures, we specifically wanted those affected, and we got 99.9% of people in the housing scheme to sign it.
“There are 80 homes here and only two we didn’t get signatures from; one was in China and the other off-shore.
“However, both indicated their support of the petition by proxy, so you could say we had 100% success with residents.”
Cllr Kitts-Hayes responded: “Aberdeenshire Council is already very aware of the understandable concerns of the residents of communities that were flooded by the exceptional weather at the turn of the year, including Kemnay.
“There have been meetings with local residents since the floods and the Garioch Flood Recovery Plan includes a section highlighting community concerns.
“Discussions are ongoing with partner agencies, particularly SEPA, about how best to address these issues.”