Comrie flood protection scheme

Background

Comrie has experienced a history of flooding from the Water of Ruchill, the River Earn and the River Lednock. The most recent significant flood events occurred in January 1993, February 1997, December 2006 and in August and November 2012. 

In 2013, the Council completed the following flood protection works to reduce the risk of flooding to the Dalginross area from the Water of Ruchill:- 

• Rock armour protection to the river bank on the Water of Ruchill at Ruchilside;
• The removal of the old flood embankments at Tomnagaske; 
• A new flood embankment at Camp Road. 

The standard of protection provided by these new works against flooding from the Water of Ruchill is equivalent to the predicted 1 in 100 year return period flood, with an allowance for climate change. This corresponds to the flood event that has a 1% chance of being exceeded in any one year. 

However, these flood protection works do not address the remaining flood risk from the River Earn or the River Lednock, or the combined risk from all three rivers, and hence why a wider flood protection scheme is required. 

The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act

Comrie is located in the River Earn catchment within Potentially Vulnerable Area 02/08/13. 

Actions to manage the risk of flooding in the area have been included in the current Tay Flood Risk Management Plan, and the Tay Local Flood Risk Management Plan (PDF, 12 MB). Alongside the flood protection scheme a number of other actions have therefore also been included to support the community in the meantime, such as an action to develop a surface water management plan (SWMP). Details of all of these actions can be viewed in the above Plans, with further details on the SWMP noted at the bottom of this page.

The flood protection scheme has been included within the national priority list of flood schemes. The funding of the scheme is shared between the Scottish Government (80%) and the Council (20%), with the value of each share fixed at the point of the main construction contract award.  

The Council secured the necessary statutory approval for the Scheme under the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 in 2021. The proposed Scheme was confirmed without modification by the Council's Environment and Infrastructure Committee on 18 August 2021. The Scottish Ministers directed that planning permission was deemed to be granted on 16 December 2021.  

The Comrie Flood Protection Scheme

The flood scheme is designed to protect 189 homes and businesses, some of which have previously been affected by flooding in Comrie. The Scheme will significantly reduce the flood risk to those properties from three rivers; the River Earn, the River Lednock and the Water of Ruchill. Once complete, it will provide a standard of protection equivalent to a flood event with 0.5% chance of occurring in any given year (a 1 in 200 year flood event), with a further factor of safety (known as 'freeboard') to allow for the uncertainties involved in flood estimation and other physical factors such as wave action.  

The flood scheme involves the construction of flood walls and embankments. Details of the proposed scheme can be viewed on our scheme documents page.  

Latest updates

Please refer to our current progress and timeline page for the latest updates on the progress of the scheme, community engagement and the latest community newsletter.

Comrie Surface Water Management Plan

The current Tay Flood Risk Management Plan and Local Flood Risk Management Plan contains an action for the council to develop a surface water management plan (SWMP) for the Comrie area. We have recently engaged Sweco UK Ltd to deliver this work for the Council. The SWMP will benefit from the existing knowledge and work that Sweco have of the area through developing the flood protection scheme. 

We are currently gathering and analysing existing information and have issued a community questionnaire to allow residents and businesses to provide further local knowledge.  The next steps will be to model surface water/sewer flood risk, using the gathered information on known issues to increase confidence in the model outputs, identify the areas of highest risk and identify potential options to reduce this risk. 

We will provide community updates on this work alongside communications relating to the flood protection scheme. We are currently aiming to conclude the SWMP by March 2026. 

Contact details

If you have any queries relating to the Comrie Flood Protection Scheme please contact Ross Fletcher, Project Manager, or Gavin Bissett, Engineer (Flooding), on 01738 476840 or at ComrieFloodScheme@pkc.gov.uk. 

Please contact Gavin Bissett, Engineer (Flooding) on the above noted details for any queries regarding the surface water management plan. 

Correspondence can also be sent to the Flooding Team, Environment & Infrastructure, Perth and Kinross Council, Pullar House, 35 Kinnoull Street, Perth, PH1 5GD