The chairman of Fairlie Community Council has voiced concerns that a ‘child could drown’ after claiming that a housing developer has “moved the goalposts” over flooding guidelines.

As a result of these fears, which were relayed to North Ayrshire Council via councillor Tom Marshall, the local authority have demanded that the new Fairlie housing area is made safe.

Mr Steven Graham said that three silt traps will be set up at the Keppenburn positioned around 200 yards at an area that is quite steep to the east of the Main Road.

Dawn Homes received planning permission for 62 homes in Fairlie, with future plans expected to reach up to 150 homes for the greenbelt area between Castlepark and Ladies Walk.

At the recent community council meeting, chairman Mr Graham said: “They are talking about providing three separate traps in there. You can think of the sediment trap as a dam which is 0.9m high, and every so often, what they do is that all the sediment comes off the hills. Somebody would have to come down and clear it out. What that would do is that it would protect the existing culvert that goes under the road. It wouldn’t silt up the way that it currently does.

“You then end up with three areas on a fast flowing burn where you are going to have 0.9m deep. If a child fell in there, my question is, what would happen? How are they going to protect or ensure that a child will not fall into that 0.9m pool?

“Our argument is that this should have been done as part of the planning consent. NAC have said that it will be looked at but it wasn’t there as a planning requirement. It wasn’t put in front of the planning committee, it will be up to officers to accept or reject what is being offered. I question, on a matter which is a critical thing like that, whether that is acceptable.” “There is a risk that a child could drown if safeguards are not put in place. I come from the chemical industry - we would not have put in a change like that at this stage without having the safety precautions already designationed and agreed.” However, community councillor John Riddell disagreed with Mr Graham, and said that the sediment traps would be a ‘big advantage’ in the project.

Mr Graham responded: “Mr Riddell doesn’t believe there is a problem and that Dawn are doing it by the book - I am just questioning whether the book is right. The council say that there will be agreed protection put in place - but I don’t know what that protection is. They have said that they will come back to us at the time but I just think it should have been done up front.

“You have got to remember in the original planning application, the brief was agreed to them subject to them remediating the problems that are causing the current flooding which meant that they had to increase the culvert and increase the flow to allow the Keppenburn in a 200 year worst situation - it would still not overflow. That is now no longer going to happen.” A flooding group had been set up involving the housing developer, Network Rail, Transport Scotland, and North Ayrshire Council in a bid to resolve the flooding problems in the specific area at Keppenburn, and the A78.