A WARNING that “climate change is here to stay” has been given as Fife Council looks at how best to prepare for more extreme weather like that which hit the region last summer.

A major incident was declared in the Kingdom after torrential rain washed out homes, closed off roads and piled cars atop one another in the car parks of Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital in August.

In what were described as “one in a 1,000 year events” parts of Fife saw 106mm of rain – more than a month’s worth – in a single night while one local councillor said "we were lucky we didn’t lose lives in Cardenden” due to the devastating floods.

The environment and protective services sub-committee heard on Thursday that council officers have gathered what they believe to be a complete record of all areas affected by flooding in recent months.

There had been criticism that a previous report did not include all the flooding incidents that happened during the storms in August and they've appealed to councillors and the public to get in touch if there are any areas that have been missed out.

Officers intend to use the database to assess which areas require new flood assessments, at a cost of £325,000 for this financial year.

More money will be required for further assessments after April – a decision which lies with the policy and resources committee.

Ross Speirs, service manager for structural services, said: “This is further confirmation, if we need any, that climate change is here to stay.

“There’s no such thing as too much information when it comes to investigations of flood events.”

The thunderstorm that struck on August 11-12, and more torrential rain on August 25, led to 239 flooding ‘events’ being recorded, with the council deploying 129 personnel, 84 vehicles and approximately 4,300 sandbags in response.

One of the worst hit areas was Cardenden, where more than 20 homes were badly damaged. The storms left parts of the village under water and Cllr Linda Erskine said the response was “just not good enough”.

At the policy and co-ordination committee in November, she said: "If it was a report card it would be getting a D-minus in my opinion because we were lucky we didn’t lose lives in Cardenden.”

The council said last week that their options in predicting the areas that could be hit next are limited, but that those areas which suffered particularly badly in August will be provided with prevention measures such as flood pods.

They're also engaging with Scottish Water to assess what the national body can do to bolster its infrastructure. 

Ken Gourlay, head of environment, believes residents need to remain alert and said: “If you look at the incidents in August, bearing in mind this is a one in a 1,000 year event, it’s incredibly difficult to make that pre-emptive move.

“We don’t know where that flooding is going to come, new problems arose for the first time that we were aware of and road systems are built to cope with a one in 30 year flood. These systems were never built to cope with that level of water.

“We need to work with the communities on resilience so folk can protect their own properties where possible. But think about the amount of staff out that night trying to cover that amount of events – it’s almost impossible.”

Dr Rick Haynes, lead consultant on flooding, shorelines and harbours, said: “The quantities of rainfall we saw were the new benchmark and unfortunately benchmarks due to climate change are being broken frequently and more extremely.

“It’s not possible to say the frequency of these events – the terminology ‘one in a 1,000 years’ is a problem for us. It’s giving an indication of the magnitude of the event, rather than how frequently they will turn up.

“The only thing we can say is these events are becoming more frequent and more extreme. We’re expecting to have these events happen multiple times.”

Public consultation on new local flood risk plans, drawn up by local councils and SEPA to prepare areas for more extreme weather events, is taking place via SEPA’s website.