With Europe and England battered by rain, and the anniversary of Storm Babet coming up, my thoughts return to the £100 million East End Campus edging ever nearer completion.
In June this year an assessment of the site during Babet – done by an independent structural engineering firm – said: “The flood water dissipated within 24 hours, showing the constructed flood measures behaved as expected.”
That phrase, “measures performed as expected”, still baffles me.
Everyone could see the place was in trouble that day. There were photos of diggers with dirty water at least three feet up their wheels.
Is that what’s expected?
What should be “expected” of “constructed” anti-flood measures, I’d suggest, is that they keep out floods.
While the engineer’s comment was surprising it’s the response, or lack of, that’s worrying.
If I was a councillor I’d have asked, very pointedly: “As expected? Eh? What does that mean, exactly?”
And when I found out, I’d tell everyone what the story is.
That’s what a councillor does, isn’t it? They are the elected representatives of ordinary people who take part in the machinery of local government.
They act in our best interests. They listen to constituents’ concerns. They ask questions on the public’s behalf. Then explain and reassure people.
So why hasn’t any Dundee councillor reassured the public?
Why haven’t any of them, from any party, come forward to clarify: “Nah, we wouldn’t be stupid enough to allow a £100m building on a flood plain without making sure the investment is entirely protected.”
Perhaps it’s just me being a panicky old hack and not understanding the complicated stuff.
Surely some clever hydrologist has ensured there are robust defences that can cope with a tsunami coming down the hill from Whitfield; Drumgeith pitches becoming a lake and overflowing; or the Dighty bursting its banks?
And the only thing that’s been missed is to inform the public not to worry the school’s basement will not, ever, find itself 10 feet under water as regularly used to happen to St Saviour’s.
I’d concede there is no evidence of the site flooding in the year since Babet. But then we haven’t had a big rainstorm in that time.
‘If East End campus floods no one can act surprised’
In the past that flood plain, with high ground north and south, has flooded regularly – Dundee kens it, the council kens it, Patsy Kensit.
So I want to get it down on paper and pin-point clear – if that school floods and needs millions of pounds worth of repairs no one can act surprised.
Not the builder, not education chiefs, not any member of the council. No one.
A school there must have, from the start, effective defences – built strong and built high enough to withstand a huge flood.
If that school isn’t dry every single day, no matter how much rain falls, no matter what the Dighty does, there are no excuses.
No one involved in the planning or building will be immune from blame.
Dundee will expect not just resignations but criminal proceedings for malfeasance.
The rain can do its worst. And it will.
But, whatever happens, that school cannot flood.
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