A Renfrew business owner says firms hit by Saturday night's flooding should be compensated, as the clean-up continues around Ferry Road and workers spent Tuesday morning at the town's flood barrier.

The barriers, part of the £10m North Renfrew Flood Prevention Scheme completed in 2016, were not raised during Storm Boelo, and water from the River Clyde poured into streets near the river.

"We need to be compensated"

Sukhjinder Singh, who owns Foundry Gym on Ferry Road, was at the gym when he saw water surging down the road towards it. Within an hour, he said, most of the premises was underwater.

"The council could have prevented it by having the measures in place," he said. "We're paying our business rates for the council to be doing their job, and they've obviously failed. How quickly could they have acted when they found out it was happening?"

"There's not much point spending money on a service that, when we need it, it fails. I do feel we need to be compensated because that is a public service."

He expects to pay more than £10,000 to replace the gym's matted flooring and has already spent nearly £1,000 on dehumidifiers to dry the building out before members can return.

"It clearly shows the water came from the Clyde"

Alexander McGregor, who owns McGregor's Bar a few metres from the barrier, says his CCTV shows the water coming down the street straight from the river and over the barrier.

"If it wasn't for the Clyde, we wouldn't have flooded," he said. "We've been hard at it since basically Sunday morning. It was all hands on deck."

Fridges, ice machines and DJ equipment were all ruined, he has had to rewire the whole bar because the sockets were underwater, and the woodwork beneath the booth seating has had to be replaced. The council delivered sandbags to the bar on Sunday morning, after the water had arrived.

Council reviewing procedures

Workers were seen at the barrier site, at the junction of Ferry Road and Kings Inch Road, for several hours on Tuesday morning.

Renfrewshire Council has said the forecasts and predicted tide levels for the weekend did not reach the threshold for activating the barriers, but water levels on the estuary rose significantly higher than predicted. The council says it will review its arrangements so they reflect the impact of a changing climate.

Image: Ferry Road, Renfrew. Photo: Jim Smillie, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.