Flood Prevention

The Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act 1961 gave local authorities powers to prevent or mitigate flooding in their area, excluding flooding on agricultural land, from any watercourses apart from sewers and water mains. They could develop flood prevention schemes for approval by the Secretary of State for Scotland.[1] These powers were transferred to Regional and Island Councils in 1975.[2] The 1961 Act was amended by the Flood Prevention and Land Drainage (Scotland) Act 1997. This required local authorities to assess watercourses for flood risks and placed a duty on them to publish reports.[3] The 1997 Act was repealed by the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 which required local authorities to prepare plans to manage flood risk, assess risks of flooding and consider options to reduce the risk, and empowered local authorities to obtain information and documents to assist this work.[4]

Local authority archives services for areas which are historically prone to flooding are likely to hold records relating to flood damage, surveys, reports and photographs, including material pre-dating the development of this local authority function. National Records of Scotland holds files relating to flood prevention schemes (reference codes DD12 and DD43).

Compiler: Elspeth Reid (2021)

Bibliography

Ferguson, Keith, An introduction to local government in Scotland (The Planning Exchange, 1984)

 

References

[1] Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act 1961 (c.41) Sch.2.

[2] Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c.65) s.137.

[3] Flood Prevention and Land Drainage (Scotland) Act 1997 (c.36).

[4] Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 (asp.6) ss.44-47.