WATCH: Thurso flooding issue highlighted again after Storm Gerrit
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As Storm Gerrit blew a swathe of destruction across Caithness, residents are now busy picking up the pieces and flooding issues in Thurso have come to a head once again.
Ann Miller from Thurso posted a video on social media showing flooding around a property in Royal Terrace and said it was the "third time" that the house and surrounding area had been affected by floodwater.
She wrote in the post: "The cause is storm drains backing up and flooding the gardens, then flowing down the neighbouring streets. Simple drain cleans could prevent a lot of damage."
David Bews from Thurso saw the video and said that the main issue is that "over the past 40-50 years there has been more pipes/cables laid with improvements/replacement and new builds" in the town and these pipes can be accidentally damaged due to work carried out.
Mr Bews, who previously worked with contractors laying pipes throughout the area, added: "The chances are that a JCB will be used to dig ditches and in turn breaks drainage. Unless it is sewerage, electrical, gas or water mains, the contractor will try and carry out the repairs themselves and this then might mean that it does not have the same care in the repair, or it won't last long. [This] means it starts to leak, and a sinkhole is created and the surface ground sinks."
He says that in and around the town, old drains have been damaged or broken and not repaired properly. "This then means water has to go somewhere and that is into housing estates, roads and shops."
Mr Bews thinks that a major issue is that when the old drains were originally sited, their positions were not noted precisely on plans. "Accidental breakages can go unnoticed. Take the hole/s on Sir Archibald Road, Thurso, which is possibly due to damaged drainage from Springpark.
"The next point is that a lot of people have lost interest in gardens and have concrete/paves or stone gardens, or even driveways rather than grass. This in turn means that there is no soil to soak up the rainwater and it just runs off into a drain and that drain is now too small to cater for the amount of run-off, as the estate's original drains had gardens in mind and not driveways.
"The town centres are becoming flooded and if all the old drains were checked, I'm sure that you'd find a large percentage were blocked or damaged – as is happening next to the old Clydesdale Bank in Thurso, when the road keeps sinking, filled in and sinks again and again."
Thurso and Northwest Caithness councillor Ron Gunn said that the town's drains had been pushed to their utmost by the huge ingress of rainwater during Storm Gerrit. He added: "We are aware of a large pipe on Cowie Lane that takes the water to the river and needs repaired. It will be a major job and contractors will have to be brought in for that." Cllr Gunn could not give a timescale for the job and the issue of funding for it.
"The good news is that a huge amount of water came down Mount Pleasant Road and it appears the work recently done at Sir Archibald Road seems to have taken it away." He says that he will speak to the council's roads department about gully cleaning, as took place after the last major flood occurrence in August this year.
Fellow ward councillor Matthew Reiss said there are no easy answers to the problem. "Part of the problem is that grit is washed into the drains during the winter," he said.
"There is a major problem in the town centre with the drains partly because underneath the roads and buildings there is a lot of sand.
"With different agencies being responsible for the A9 over the years it is not 100 percent clear where all the drains are. We do know there is a problem with the drain running down Manson's Lane to the river but that is going to be a major expenditure for the council."
He said said that the council's roads department has not been able to keep up with all the drain clearing work in Thurso and that is due to a lack of staff and the local authority's reluctance to pay overtime for its workers to complete the backlog of tasks.
Cllr Reiss also paid a debt of gratitude to all those who helped with the issues that arose from Storm Gerrit, especially the efforts made to clear landslip debris from the road leading to Scrabster harbour so that the lifeboat crew could gain access if needed along with other emergency services.
Mr Bews summed up his thoughts on Thurso's ongoing issue with flooding and said: "Whilst a lot of people want to blame climate change, I'd say only about 25 percent of the problem is that – the rest is down to poor planing, lack of repairs [when broken] and maintenance over the last 50-plus years."
