Bridging the Gap...
It’s a safe bet, dear reader, that you would like to see the collapsed path below the Cathedral repaired. With the blessing of the Community Council, the DDT’s Environment Group surveyed all the Dunblane clubs and societies for whom email addresses could be found, and 1600 members of the community gave strong support via their groups for our initiative.
The pot of money originally assigned for this repair by Stirling Council was used elsewhere in these straitened times, so we have started from scratch. Community engineer Ian Maclachlan from IKM Consulting Ltd reviewed all the many reports that had already been produced on the subject of the Allan Water as it passes through the Haugh, did his own in-depth survey and produced a report for us. One of our members with extensive experience of fundraising then trawled through every possible source of money.
Armed with these two reports we invited the stakeholders – the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Stirling Council, Historic Scotland - and other interested parties to a meeting in early October. It was disappointing that no statutory representatives were able to attend but we were fortunate to have valuable input from Councillors Houston and Ruskell, from the Allan Water Angling Association, from Dunblane Cathedral Kirk Session and from RBLS Dunblane.
Although serious consideration was given to tackling the source of the problem fi rst, i.e. restoring the riverbed to its original width (5 metres’ width has been lost to deposition in places) to prevent future fl ooding, it was agreed that the removal of the 40 self-sown trees growing along this stretch of the river could be tackled, either by the community or with help from Stirling Council, and that a fi rm proposal for the repair of the collapsed section of wall and path should be put to Stirling Council for consideration. We understand from the Councillors that a Priority-Based Budgeting exercise will begin in November with decisions expected in February 2014. Ian Maclachlan volunteered to produce a costed proposal to put to the Council and we are most grateful to him for doing this completely voluntarily. We look forward to a positive outcome.
Watch this space, because this is only the beginning. Our aim is to restore this canalised stretch of the river so that it functions effi ciently, and to grout the entire length of the wall so that we can be confi dent no other collapses will occur. If you would like to join our small working group to help take this project forward, please contact Janice Stewart on 01786 824 993.
The DDT web page can be viewed at
www.dunblane.info/ddt
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