Lochgoil Community Trust has spoken of the “catastrophic” damage done to the Lochgoilhead Community Park and Gardens, the Lochgoilhead River Walk and The River Shack café trailer by the weekend storms and floods.
“We have lost a section of the River Walk and it’s fairly dramatic” said Tim King, chariperson of the trust.
“People are distraught. It has been a massive asset for the community. We have lost a whole chunk of it.”
Mr King said a big clean-up effort was already under way, with around 30 volunteers shifting tonnes of debris and dirt.
“We are never short of volunteers but the scale of the work and the cost involved buying tonnes of material all over again is going to take a fair while to gather funds for.
“We can’t tackle it without significant machinery. It is going to be months.”
Chef Gabriel Neamtu from The River Shack, which was inundated, told the Argyllshire Advertiser earlier this week: “It was pretty dramatic and bad for us.
“Almost everything was taken away by the river. Tomorrow we will find out how badly all the equipment was damaged.
“We jumped in the water but the water was too powerful, too dangerous.
“I thought the trailer would float away so we tried to tie it to an old tree but the weight of the trailer, that held it down.
“We would like to thank the community; they jumped in to help us.”
Gabriel added: “We are trying to rebuild and clean the trailer. We are now in recovery mode.”
The community trust posted notices on its Facebook page that read: “Our beautiful community garden is wrecked and the wonderful River Walk that has meant so much to so many people is gone, along with the riverbank itself.
“The superb wee The River Shack has been dragged from the debris but massive losses are inevitable for the dedicated couple who run it.
“Many of you have kindly offered to make donations towards the repair and restoration work, which you can do here: https://bit.ly/3PO2Ff7
“Please first, however, consider making a donation to our friends Chef Gabriel and Gabriella to help them get The River Shack back up and running and serving wonderful food to our community and visitors: https://gofund.me/b2d2a626
