COUNCIL officials are to discuss the flooding in Jedburgh with the town’s community council on Tuesday.
The Scottish Borders Council officers will be talking about the community’s response to the flash flood earlier this month. and will speak about introducing a community resilience scheme in the area.
Community council chairman Richard Gordon said: “The council is quite keen to set up a community resilience group and I think we will look very seriously at that.”
About 50 businesses and homes were flooded when the Skip Running Burn rose two metres in less than 15 minutes and burst its banks after heavy rainfall on Sunday, August 5.
Mr Gordon said: “It was a very dangerous situation for the town and we are lucky no-one was seriously hurt or worse.”
Police sealed off the town centre and about 50 fire fighters, among other emergency services, and 50 SBC staff attended.
SBC said this week it had estimates of the costs of helping Jedburgh yet. It has commissioned engineering consultants Halcrow Group to assess how the heavy rainfall affected the burn and present options for action and their answers are expected in three weeks.
The council has applied for emergency financial assistance from the Scottish Government through the Bellwin scheme, which helps local authorities with the costs of emergency incidents.
Locals described being trapped as a torrent swept through Castlegate, Canongate and the High Street.
Mr Gordon said: “There are one or two folk angry and wanting to cast blame, but the emergency services and council workers and everybody else involved did an excellent job: it was dangerous once the flood started and lives were at risk. I don’t know what more could have been done given the situation.”
SBC council leader Councillor David Parker said: “We are continuing to inspect and identify damage to infrastructure. We are also aware of roads damage in the wider central Borders and this may also form part of any Bellwin Scheme claim.”