Elected Member Briefing Note - Weather Update, 5pm, 22 January 2026

About this Briefing Note

Report by: Lisa Potter, Service Manager - Strategic Communications and Engagement 

Date: 22 January 2026

Subject: Weather update - 5pm, Thursday 22 January 2026

Details

Purpose

To provide an update in the light of the updated amber weather warning. 

Briefing Information

The Met Office issued a Yellow rain warning for parts of Perth and Kinross yesterday, which was subsequently updated to an Amber warning for parts of Perthshire, including Perth.

The Amber warning is in place until 6pm today, with the original Yellow warning remaining in place until midnight tomorrow.

A further meeting of the Incident Management Team took place at 4.30pm to review preparations ahead of this evening.

There were no additional updates on local areas in relation to the situations at Alyth and Ballinluig described earlier today.

Perth Flood Scheme

The most significant update is that as a precautionary measure IMT has agreed to close the Queen's Bridge in Perth. To minimise the impact on rush hour traffic, as the flows do not indicate the need for a faster closure, crews will arrive to install the flood barrier from 6pm with full closure anticipated by 7pm.

Bus operators, taxi operators, and emergency services being notified and public information being issued on social media shortly.

As a reminder South Inch, North Inch, Perth Harbour (main gates), Shore Road, Friarton, Tay Street (including the viewpoint), Commercial Street, Bridgend Court, and North Muirton gates are all closed already. Given the impact of the Friarton gate closures on business operating in that area roads teams stayed on site to ensure all businesses impacted had left before completing the closure, so the last gate closed at 4.41pm.

Any gate reopenings will be after a review of safety in daylight tomorrow based on flow information and visual inspections at that time. Friarton gates will be prioritised for those checks to allow business access as soon as it is safe to do so.

Community reassurance

The Community Support and Enforcement Team are continuing to keep in touch with community resilience groups, and will have teams available overnight on call if additional action is needed. Reassurance visits have also taken place to residents in Commercial Street, Rose Terrace and Barossa Street today with information provided. There are no additional requests for support at this time.

Council phone lines switched to out of hours operations from 5pm as usual. However, the Council's Customer Service Centre has staff in place until 10pm to support with overflow calls which cannot be managed by the out of hours arrangements with Aberdeen City Council. This means the first three calls at any time will be handled by Aberdeen City Council, but subsequent overflows will divert to a local response during this time.

Weather-related road closures

Currently the following roads are closed due to the weather conditions:

• A93 Perth to Blairgowrie Road at Cargill Bridge - Flooding
• A93 Blairgowrie to Glenshee Road at Dalhenzean - Flooding
• A923 Blairgowrie to Coupar Angus Road - Flooding
• B954 Alyth to Meigle - Flooding
• A924 Bridge of Cally to Kirkmichael Road at Ballintuim - Flooding
• C423 New Alyth to Aberbothrie Road - Flooding
• B950 at junction with A93 at Bridge of Cally - Flooding
• B898 at Dalguise - Flooding
• A923 at Butterstone - Flooding
• C455 South Comrie to Crieff Road

The A827 Ballinluig to Pitnacree Bridge is passable with care, and the A93 Perth to Blairgowrie Road (Cargill Bridge).

Any further road closures will be carried out and notified throughout the night as required by the Roads Maintenance Partnership, however, no roads will be reopened before they have been visited in daylight hours.

School closures

Blairgowrie High School and Coupar Angus Primary School will both be closed tomorrow. Coupar Angus Primary School closure is, as previously advised, to allow for roofing repairs to be carried out.