Flood Defences
Flooding Mitigation
Storm Frank swept through Scotland on December 30, 2015, bringing flooding that devasted homes and businesses. Ballater was one of the worst hit villages.
Aberdeenshire Council await a funding decision from Scottish Government without which, their recommended Ballater flood defences will not be constructed.
The local community does not support this recommended 2019 scheme, since the economic and social cost to the community is deemed too high. In addition, the economic cost benefit of these defences for Ballater when compared to other projects in Scotland means that funding is unlikely to be granted. These are challenging times for local and central government finances, so that, rather than just waiting for something (or nothing) to happen, the community has decided that it must itself start doing something on the ground progressively to mitigate the existing flood risks.
The Ballater and Crathie Community Council’s Flooding Issues Group (FIG) has worked on various workstreams including establishing an emergency procedure with the local Fire & Rescue watch commander, encouraging the uptake of property level protection (PLP) and working with the Cairngorms National Park Authority and a multi-agency workgroup to look at catchment level solutions to water management.
HESCO Box Project
In the 8 years since Storm Frank the Dee in the vicinity of Ballater has changed significantly and keeps changing. A 2023 Aberdeenshire Council commissioned study showed that the risk to the community during high frequency low level flooding has increased significantly.
In face of this increased risk, Ballater Royal Deeside raised funds to implement some of the options recommended by the additional study. This involved the clearing of a partially blocked water course and the installation of 150-metre bund wall. The main funders for the project were the Ballater Charitable Chiels, the Ballater Caravan Park owners Ballater Community Enterprise Ltd and the Marr Area Committee.
In addition, two local estates, Balmoral and Invercauld, donated materials and Colin Lawson transport donated material Haulage. Aberdeenshire Council provided the 150 metres of Hesco boxes.
A group of local volunteers, the Ballater Royal Deeside Flood Action Community Team (FACT), led by Neil Duncan, worked alongside and under the direction of a local contractor. The bund was finished at the end of 2023, ahead of time and under Budget. The lower village now has some protection against lower level flooding and it has already kept the village dry on 22 January 2024.
The next phase of the project is, to protect the bund wall with matting and grassing it over.
CBEC
Ballater Royal Deeside are now raising funds in order to employ CBEC Eco Engineering Ltd (CBEC) https://www.cbecoeng.co.uk/ to provide flood mitigation designs for various levels of flooding risk, so that there will be several defence options, with associated costs. Proceeding with detailed design and build will require considerably more funding. The amount of money raised will determine the level of flood protection that can be built.
There will be 3 phases:
o Outline Design
o Detailed Design
o Build
It is hoped that the Outline Design phase will be completed by late summer 2024.
CBEC will be asked to look at both out of river and in river work, since many in the community favour dredging and profiling option and of action on the Red Braes.
The outputs of the first phase will provide a basis for Ballater & Crathie Community Council Flood Issues Group to consider and recommend to the community what to do, how to fund this and move on with the 2nd and 3rd phases of work.
