SNP councillors and local election candidates for Dumfries and Galloway have announced plans to take forward controversial £25 million flood defences.
All nine SNP members and candidates for the Nithsdale Wards have vowed to give local residents and businesses a voice in the decision over the Whitesands flood prevention scheme in Dumfries.
In a statement, SNP Group Leader Andy Ferguson told The National: “Today SNP Councillors and candidates make a firm commitment to the people of Dumfries. Once we have the outcome of the statutory process which is currently underway, we revisit the matter by putting it to the people of Dumfries – collectively the people will decide what happens on the Whitesands.
“Throughout the past five years SNP Councillors have been guided by two principles on this issue. The first is that doing nothing at all is unsustainable. We do not believe that Dumfries should remain the largest town in Scotland to be regularly flooded by its river.”
Campaigners of Save Our Sands Group, which includes residents and businesses who would be affected by the huge work needed to put the scheme in place, has accused the leading Labour group of steamrolling through the costly scheme without proper consultation with the public, despite new community empowerment legislation.
Ferguson added: “Our second principle is that any flood defence scheme should be supported by the majority of people who live and work in Dumfries. It was action by the SNP, for example, which resulted in the redesign of the original scheme.
“We are now in a formal statutory process in which the council has a legal obligation to listen to and act on concerns and objections. Our commitment is that, at the end of that process, we will ask the people of Dumfries through a formal public consultation, whether they approve of the outcome or not.
“And our further commitment is this: whatever the majority response is, that is what we will deliver. If the majority approve, then the scheme will be built. If the majority does not approve, then we go back to the drawing board.
“The SNP takes community empowerment seriously and the Whitesands scheme will be the litmus test of our willingness to put communities in the driving seat of major decisions.”
Last month the Labour-run council was forced to extend its consultation period to March 15 after realising documents relating to the scheme were missing from their website, but campaigners say businesses affected have not been properly consulted.
Former council leader John Dowson, who is part of the campaign group, said: “Labour is trying to push this scheme and to be fair to the Tories, they have recently said they don’t believe it will be value for money.
“This is a Labour Party vanity project. It started at £8m a few years ago, it has risen to £25m and we estimate it will end up costing £35-40m because, even starting the work is at least two or three years away.
“Everyone in Scotland will be paying for it because 80 per cent of the final bill will come out of the Scottish Government. Now we don’t believe this scheme has a Scottish priority, there are no residencies affected.
He added: “There are small floods that come in maybe once a year to wellington boot height and I work with most of the property owners who do get flooded and they are totally opposed to the scheme. They have their own defences in place.
“They are worried about the loss of river views by a permanent 2.9 metre-high glass and steel barrier all the way along the river for 1.1km, that they will lose the car park and drive people away from the town centre and the length of construction work could put them out of business.
“We have submitted 17 pages of objections to the scheme but they are hell-bent on doing it because they want money from the Scottish Government flood prevention grant scheme. In order to get the money the barrier has to reach a certain height. It’s purely political.”
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