A resident of The Rise, Ken Macintosh, saw where the water was coming from in the recent flash flood.

He wrote in the letters page of the Largs 'News': "It is certainly true to say that rainwater run-off from the site has caused a large puddle on a couple of occasions, as it crossed the road and went back into the drains on the Glen Road.

However, more than 90% of the total volume of water that flowed on to the Glen Road, then into the backs of houses in Raillies Avenue, through the Glen towards the Noddle Burn (and a similar amount that flowed down Glen Avenue and through further properties on its way to the burn), did not originate from The Rise. Having been on the hills behind Inverclyde for the first hour of the downpour (28mm fell between 1800 and 1900) I saw the first evidence of the immediate runoff, as the Inverclyde Golf Course developed standing water over large areas.

On the way back, I could not cross the normally small Moorburn stream which flows from 200m north of the “Quadrocks” and passes to the south of Inverclyde. I had great difficulty in crossing the stream that starts 400m further north. This normally tiny stream passes to the north of Inverclyde, joining the field drain that follows the road from Kilburn Farm.

Ken who actually measures rainfall goes into more detail in his published letter but concludes: "Many other areas of Largs were affected by this sudden deluge, 54mm in 3 hours! I wonder if The Rise was also to blame for flooding at M&Co, Gogo St, Trigoni Court and Pencil View etc? Could it just be that we are starting to see signs of the predicted increase in extremes of weather as a result of climate change?"