Flood measures at Dundee’s £100m super-school site ‘worked as expected’ following Storm Babet

Flood measures at Dundee’s new £100m ‘super-school’ worked as expected following Storm Babet, an independent assessment has found.

The East End Community Campus – a merger between Craigie High School and Braeview Academy – is being built on land at Drumgeith Road.

It’s the former site of St Saviour’s High School, which was demolished over a decade ago.

However, the decision to build a new school at the site – which is a known flood risk – has proven to be controversial.

A public consultation held in 2020 revealed concerns over the potential for flooding in the area, with respondents saying St Saviour’s ended up “sinking” into the ground.

At the time, Dundee City Council said a “collaborative flood assessment” was happening with another local authority along the Dighty Burn to “understand and address the long-standing flooding issues”.

But fresh concerns were raised over the viability of the site when Storm Babet hit Dundee last year.

Pictures taken in the aftermath of the storm showed building equipment and cars submerged in flood water after the Dighty Burn burst its banks.

‘Flood water dissipated within 24 hours’

However, a new flood risk assessment – recently submitted with a planning application for an overflow car park at the campus – has revealed flood measures built for the new school worked as intended.

The assessment was carried out by Edinburgh-based structural engineers Goodson Associates.

The report read: “It is proposed that the new car park will be captured in the new urban drainage network for the school campus, providing appropriate levels of surface water treatment and attenuation prior to discharge to the Dighty Water at the south eastern boundary of the site.

“The site is found to be a flood risk and most recently in 2023 when the Dighty Water watercourse overtopped the Drumgeith Road to the west and overland flows flooded the site.

“This was during the construction works of the main campus and the flood water dissipated within 24 hours, showing the constructed flood measures behaved as expected.”

Work on the East End Campus began last summer, with the school expected to open in August 2025.

Dundee City Council declined to comment.