Designs for £90M Elgin scheme under way

25 October 2007

Moray councillors have given officers the go ahead to start detailed design work on what is thought to be Scotland’s largest local authority-led flood defence scheme.

The authority plans to start construction by next autumn on the £90M Elgin flood-alleviation scheme, to reduce the risk of flooding to 1,000 properties from the River Lossie.

The northeast Scotland town has experienced devastating flooding three times in the last decade. Officers have highlighted that the equivalent of three juggernauts full of water every second passed through the town when the Lossie was in full flood (Surveyor, 2 March 2006).

Barbara Hellett, Moray’s manager of the Elgin scheme to create embankments and flood plains, had advised that starting detailed design before submitting the flood-prevention order and planning application carried the risk of abortive work.

But the alternative was to wait until the end of winter for objections to be received on the priority scheme, further delaying the construction start, originally planned for next August.

But councillors on the flood-alleviation sub-committee, which monitors progress on Moray’s £155M defence schemes programme, agreed with officers that work should not continue on a scheme to protect the village of Kingston.

Further investment in the proposal to create an offshore breakwater carried ‘a high financial risk’ for the council, officers advised. Plans for the scheme were drawn up after a narrow shingle bank separating Kingston from the Moray Firth was breached on several occasions by waves.

Moray’s officers considered that consultant Jacobs had overestimated the benefits for the scheme to protect 200 residents. It was also likely that the scheme would fail to gain the necessary consents. The Fisheries Protection Service had indicated that a submerged reef would affect species at the ‘internationally-important site’.

Moray’s flood-alleviation programme, which includes the scheme for Elgin and four others for a number of smaller settlements, is currently £746,500 over budget. Progress was ‘generally satisfactory’, officers said, but efforts would ‘continue to mitigate any slippages’.

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