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Crowdfunder backs project to tackle River Spey flooding


By Alan Beresford

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A MORAY community group have opened a crowdfunding bid to help tackle the problem of flooding at mouth of the River Spey.

The River Spey has moved 600 yards westwards over th elast few years due to lack of bank management. Picture: Moray Drone Services
The River Spey has moved 600 yards westwards over th elast few years due to lack of bank management. Picture: Moray Drone Services

Innes Community Council (ICC) are behind the Speymouth Environmental Initiative which is seeking to raise £5000 to have the Spey river and adjacent land professionally scanned using drones and a Lidar camera to get data on shape and elevation of the land surface.

The data gathered will be used to develop a greater plan as to where and how engineering works can be best carried out to guide the river back to its old and sustainable course. A Lidar camera use a laser beam to measure and plot the features of the land surface giving a map laid out with contour lines or in a 3D format.

In their online funding bid, the ICC said: "The River Spey is an iconic salmon river and very dynamic, especially in the last three miles of its course.

"With global warming, increased rainfall has increased the number of floods sicnificantly. Because of that and lack of bank management in recent years the river has moved 600 yards westwards.

"It is about to destroy one house. From there its course will go westwards towards lower Garmouth. Once it reaches that point 10 houses and the local sewage treatment works are under severe threat.

"The increased flooding (10 days since October 2020) causes the golf course to become damaged on a regular basis and the number of playing days severely restricted affecting the clubs income. The constant movement and erosion of the river banks is causing severe damage to both the aquatic environment as well as the surrounding landscape.

"Because of the movement of course, the river no longer has the power to wash gravel out to sea and is being deposited in such a manner as to increase the flooding levels and frequency. Constant erosion in some areas and deposition of gravel in others is destroying agricultural land and as well as habitat for birds and mammals."

According to ICC, the true cost of damages and losses to the village residents and others in the past 10 years from flooding events is £1.87 million. Those losses are not recoverable.

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