DGHP’s Dumfries office re-opens following flood

The DGHP offices following Storm Frank
The DGHP offices following Storm Frank

Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership’s main Dumfries office reopened yesterday following severe flooding brought in by the recent Storm Frank.

DGHP staff and contractors managed to prepare for the floods and cleared the office of the main furniture and equipment and have spent several days clearing up in its wake after the River Nith in Dumfries burst its banks.

Jayne Moore, DGHP’s director of housing services, said: “With the best will in the world and our staff helping prepare for the worst we just couldn’t stop the water coming in.

“We took the decision to close our office for an extra day on Tuesday (January 5) to allow us to get the new carpets down, the furniture back in and the files all back together ready for ‘business as usual’ on Wednesday.”

The office as it looks today
The office as it looks today

DGHP tenants were extremely lucky when it came to the flooding with very few affected. Two families had to be evacuated from their homes in Kirkton and are being decanted until repair works are carried out to their properties. We also had some isolated flooding in Newton Stewart and in Carsphairn.

Jayne added: “Our dedicated repairs team and our contractors are busy now with repairing external works, including surface water flooding at Holywood, a retaining wall at Sanquhar as well as the responsive works needing done to roofs and doors in our tenants’ homes.”

Floodgates, which have been provided by DGHP for tenants in Kirkconnel following flooding several years ago, were installed and thankfully this time the water was kept from the houses in St Conal’s Square.

DGHP’s Customer Service Centre was open for calls in between Christmas and New Year and the team, including the Technical Inspectors and the service centre staff, did an excellent job of keeping on top of the aftermath of the storm.

DGHP operates a 24/7 emergency repairs service for all 10,300 tenants across Dumfries and Galloway and remained on hand to deal with emergencies throughout the festive period.

Jayne added: “The preparation work before the storm hit, and the emergency exercises we had previously held, really helped us deal with this situation. Our staff and contractors who came out to help really kept things moving and ensured there wasn’t more damage caused.”

@DGHP_hq

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