Scotland’s weather: Fears of floods as rain hits Scotland

The Met Office has issued rain alerts in the Lothian and Borders, Central,  Tayside and Fife and South-West Scotland areas, and warned of persistent and heavy downpours causing  a risk of flooding.

But the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it was confident that rivers had the capacity to cope with the expected deluge, and that a repeat of the scenes last week which saw scores of residents rescued from their flood-hit homes was not anticipated.

A spokesperson for Sepa said last night: “On Sunday we will have rain coming up from England. It looks like it’s heading towards the east of the country, and Edinburgh and Lothian, Fife and possibly the Borders are probably going to get most of it.

“But we are seeing that the water levels in rivers have fallen back since Thursday. There may be a danger of flooding in some little burns and the smaller watercourses but we think the rivers have the capacity to take the rainfall that we are looking at.

“Earlier in the week, Dumfries and Galloway and Tayside got a lot of rainfall, but it looks like it’s going to largely miss those areas this time – they may still get rain but it won’t be a heavy downpour. On Monday it looks like it will be dry again, so hopefully the worst of it is over for now. But we would still advise people to check the flood page on the Sepa website for up-to-date information.”

On Monday, a major  incident was declared as more than 100 homes in the Perthshire village of Comrie were severely affected by extreme weather, as the River Ruchill burst its banks.