Storm blows £100m hole in Scotland’s economy

By JENNY FYALL, FRANK URQUHART and JOHN ROSS
Published on Saturday 10 December 2011 00:00

THE hurricane-force winds that battered Scotland and left 150,000 homes without power cost the economy about £100 million, according to business experts.

Early business closures, power outages, blocked roads and employees staying at home are expected to have taken a significant toll on Scotland’s economy, analysts from professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said, warning that retailers would be particularly hard hit.

About 50,000 households, schools and businesses struggled through a second day without electricity yesterday, with energy firms warning small numbers of homes could face power cuts until Sunday.

And last night, an offshore operation was under way to secure two giant oil storage tankers that broke anchor in the North Sea.

The Petrojarl Banff and Apollo Spirit, two linked vessels about 190km east of Aberdeen, were destabilised by the gales. The Scottish Government said all 67 crew members were safe and no spillage had been reported.

The Petrojarl Banff, which has 96,300 tonnes of crude oil on board, drifted 250m after losing tension in half its anchors, while the Apollo Spirit, with 96,300 tonnes on board lost tension in one anchor but remained secure.

Environment secretary Richard Lochhead said he was “being kept fully informed of developments”. He added: “Fortunately, there have been no reports of any potential pollution but we will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

At the peak of Thursday’s storm, with top wind speeds of 165mph on the summit of Cairn Gorm, about 150,000 properties were without electricity – 105,000 Scottish Hydro customers and 40,000 with ScottishPower.

By yesterday afternoon, Scottish Hydro had reduced its number to 38,000, mainly in Argyll, Tayside and Highland, while ScottishPower had 1,200 still cut off.

More than 1,300 engineers were out, trying get customers back on before nightfall. Some councils set up relief centres in schools, offering heating and hot food to vulnerable residents.

Transport agencies reported more than 110 incidents across Scotland’s roads network during the gales, including fallen trees, the recovery of seven HGVs, 24 floods, landslips and fallen power lines. By yesterday afternoon, 99 per cent of these had been cleared.

The Traffic Scotland website had a record 24 million hits over the course of Thursday, while calls to the customer care help-line were up from an average of 100 a day to 1,500.

PwC said pub, restaurant and hotel owners, retailers and hauliers had been particularly hard-hit by the storms, as they struggled with power cuts, road closures that delayed and halted deliveries and employees taking time off to care for children sent home from school.

It based its prediction of a £100m cost to the Scottish economy on research that suggests for every day the UK grinds to a halt, the economic loss is £1 billion a day, equivalent to about £100m in Scotland.

Caroline Roxburgh, PwC’s head of private business in Scotland, said: “Retailers will be particularly badly hit, as Christmas shoppers stay at home at the most profitable time of the year for them. While some businesses may be robust enough financially to take the hit, others may well be teetering on the edge and, for them, a winter like last year may well push them over the edge.”

The Scottish Government’s resilience committee, chaired by Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, met yesterday morning and announced all travel restrictions had been lifted, although some minor roads remained closed.

Ms Sturgeon said: “While the worst of the weather has now passed, we are now seeing the after-effects of this storm with a number of homes across Scotland still left without power.”

At the Scottish Parliament building, two granite cladding panels became loose and the entire structure was being inspected as a precaution.

While the winds eased off in most of the country, the North-east and the Northern Isles were still suffering. Winds of up to 138.5mph continued to batter Orkney. The Met Office warned of snow, blizzards and ice on roads across Orkney, Shetland, the Highlands and Grampian.

About 5 per cent of schools remained closed yesterday, mainly in the north of the country, some due to power cuts. They included 50 in the Highlands, all schools in Orkney, 17 primaries in Aberdeenshire and seven on Shetland. Fraserburgh Academy in Aberdeenshire is not expected to reopen until Tuesday.

Scottish Hydro said it had had to deal with 400 incidents in the north of Scotland in one day – the equivalent of two months’ work. Engineers were using helicopters to get to some areas cut off by blocked roads.

A ScottishPower spokesman said: “Our network engineers say this has been the worst storm since the Boxing Day storms of 1998.” One engineer returned to his van to discover it had been crushed under a falling tree.

Some trains from Inverness, Fort William and Oban were still affected, although most of ScotRail’s services were running as normal.

On the roads, the A82 south of Fort William, which had been closed for much of Thursday due to a landslide, opened for a few hours. However, it was to close again last night until 6am on Monday to allow for the removal of a 250-tonne boulder above the Glen Righ section.

In Aberdeen, three of six families evacuated from a tenement block in the Kincorth area after part of the gable end collapsed on to a car were allowed home.

The Glencoe Ski Centre had been planning to mark its earliest ever opening yesterday, but high winds meant the celebrations had to be put on ice.

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26

judgedredd777

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 04:15 PM

#6 Banksy.......You paint a seriously sensuous picture, a hooker in every tram window rotating them from York Place to the airport and back. The street corners will be redundant and it brings a whole new meaning to "Easy Jet" trips to Edinburgh. It`ll make it worthwhile spending £2 billion for the window shoppers like in Amsterdam, who by the way have an absolutely fabulous tram system.

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vistaero

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 03:04 PM

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24

..postmark54

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 11:03 AM

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23

..postmark54

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:58 AM

...................... Meanhile; ............................................................................... Saturday 10 December 2011 Weather forecast for Edinburgh Today Cloudy Cloudy Temperature: 3 C to 5 C Wind Speed: 12 mph Wind direction: South west Tomorrow Light rain Light rain Temperature: 3 C to 7 C Wind Speed: 12 mph Wind direction: South west ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Yeah we can all see why you're whining ............................................

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22

Tennis C. Williams

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:54 AM

Just when are the Nationalists finally going to confess to the Scottish people that our country is far too windy to be independent? I won't be holding my breath.

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21

americanbob

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:54 AM

Postie, do shut up! Your almost as bad as Vista!

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20

..postmark54

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:52 AM

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19

vistaero

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:49 AM

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18

trenchchat

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:46 AM

#17 No Bill, its all the fault of Gordon Brown and Labour. If only Scotland was "independent" then the weather would be perfect.

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17

BillDunblane

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:36 AM

Just waiting on Danny Alexander to blame the SNP - shouldn't be long.

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16

Auld Twa

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 10:03 AM

#5 Cynicus - One turbine out of hundreds. Are you going to ban all school busses because one was blown over in the gale ? However many turbines take fire there is no danger from release of radio-actve material.

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15

Ron Greer

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 09:14 AM

So that takes care of more than a third of the money Fergus Ewing quoted in his anti-undergrounding speech the day before the overhead transmission infrastructure came tumbling down. Another storm is due to arrive around the 14-15th and it's predicted to track lower this time with Scotland being in the colder air with more snow. Wonder how the newly repaired overhead cables will fare this time? Perhaps someone from the 'Church of CO2 Delusion' will consult a flaming prayer-wheel and ask the Great Turbine why no substantive effect on climate change would occur if all anthropogenic CO2 production in Scotland ceased or indeed if it was doubled.

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14

samcoldstream

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 09:12 AM

In August, Hurricane Irene swept through several north-east US States leaving a path of destruction. The average wind speed was 65 mph rising to 120 mph. Eight people lost their lives and hundreds were injured. Hundreds of thousands of people in New York City were evacuated, 1.4 million were left without power, there was extensive flooding, and it cost the Federal Government $6 billion(£4.4 million) in emergency aid. So far, US insurers have paid out over $8 billion. Now that's what you call a storm! (Source: 21st August, 2011 edition of the New York Times).

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13

vistaero

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 09:01 AM

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12

vistaero

Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 08:57 AM

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