North-east communities to benefit from £1.35million storm resilience funding

Aberdeenshire Council, Aberdeen City Council and Moray Council received the cash awards from SSEN on Monday.

By Ellie Milne

April 24 2023, 4:47 pm

Barry Skinner, from Aberdeen City Council Jacqui McKenzie, from Aberdeen City Council, Mark Macdonald, from SSEN, Mary Beattie, from Aberdeenshire Council, Susan Donald, from Aberdeenshire Council, Vicky Morris, from Aberdeenshire Council, Graeme Keddie, from SSEN, Shona Horn, from SSEN and Ross Ferguson, from Moray Council. Image: SSEN.

More than £1million has been awarded to north-east councils to support storm resilience plans.

Aberdeenshire Council, Aberdeen City Council and Moray Council have worked with Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) to create community-led programmes to prepare for future weather events.

Major storms in recent years, particularly Storm Arwen in November 2021, have resulted in hundreds of thousands of properties being left without power for days at a time.

The awards from SSEN Distribution reflect the impact of the recent storms in each region – with some communities facing the worst weather of their lifetimes.

Aberdeenshire Council has received the majority of the award, a total of £1 million, while Aberdeen City Council was awarded £125,000 and Moray Council got £200,000.

Storms caused significant damage across the north-east. Image: Wullie Marr/DC Thomson.

Graeme Keddie, director of corporate affairs at SSEN, said: “The unprecedented impacts of Storm Arwen will live long in the memory of both those in the north-east and our dedicated teams who were involved in the significant power restoration and recovery effort.

“As part of a comprehensive stakeholder-led review, we’ve made key improvements to both enhance the resilience of our network and improve customer communications, but we know we have an important role to play in supporting communities too.”

What will the funding be used for?

Aberdeenshire Council plans to purchase 100 battery generator packs for home use, and an additional 86 packs for sheltered housing complexes.

A community resilience conference will also be held in Aberdeenshire so local groups can come together to share ideas to improve resilience planning.

Moray Council will create three community coordination and support centres at schools across the region which will each be powered by a new generator.

These will become temporary hubs for resilience teams and the emergency services in case of a storm event, as well as a welfare space where those affected can get a hot meal.

Meanwhile, Aberdeen City Council plans to buy 20 battery generators for households and 20 portable power stations for the wider community.

The rest of the funds will be used to buy items for new personal emergency kits to be deployed across six regional support centres.

A hot food van in Kemnay set up for those without power. Image: Scott Baxter/DC Thomson.

Supporting vulnerable people

The new funding complements the existing Resilient Communities Fund – which has supported 680 community groups and not-for-profits since 2015.

Mark Findlater, leader of Aberdeenshire Council, said: “We know just how resilient our communities have proven to be, particularly with regards to recent weather-related events.

“However, this funding from SSEN will enable us to provide additional support on the ground where and when it is needed.

“That might be through the provision of equipment such as wind up torches and radios, or the issuing of battery generator packs to support the most vulnerable individuals who need to use power reliant medical equipment within their own property during a power outage.”