High tides cause flooding and traffic disruption in Cork city as businesses ‘dodge bullet’

People Cork City expressed relief after a high tide in the river Lee passed without any inundation of buildings as flooding led to traffic disruption along a number of the city quays on Monday.

Cork City Council predicted a high tide of 2.56 metres which proved accurate as high tide on the south channel of the river Lee flooded several quays.

The council’s director of services, David Joyce, said the flooding followed the council’s modelling and while water from the south channel did flood Fr Mathew Quay and halfway up Fr Mathew Street, it did not enter the South Mall, so Oliver Plunkett Street and adjacent streets were spared any flooding.

Mr Joyce said: “We closed a number of roads – we closed Wandesford Quay for a period of time, we closed all the lanes except for one on South Terrace, we closed Copley St, we closed Union Quay and then we closed two lanes on Lavitt’s Quay.

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“The water has now substantially receded in all locations except for Wandesford Quay and Lavitt’s Quay, there is still a small amount of water there but they are passable.”

Elsewhere, there was some flooding on Western Road near the gates of University College Cork which led to delays in traffic.

Cork Business Association president, Kevin Herlihy, said that city centre businesses had “dodged a bullet” in terms of flooding but he still expressed some concern regarding expected high tides on Tuesday.

“Thankfully we escaped serious flooding this time, but it was bad enough down around Copley Street and Union Quay and Trinity Bridge, they’re getting an awful hammering with high tides – it really highlights the urgent need for the Morrisons’ Island Flood Relief scheme to get under way,” Mr Herlihy said.

He said he hoped the Supreme Court would rule quickly and in favour of the Morrison’s Island Flood Relief Scheme following a leapfrog appeal by the Save Cork City Community Association against a refusal by the High Court to reverse a decision to grant planning for the scheme.

Last month, counsel for Cork City Council, Pearse Sreenan SC, told the opening day of the appeal that the relief works at Morrison’s Island are necessary and a senior planning inspector’s report had shown that 374 properties would benefit from it.

In June 2020, An Bord Pleanála granted permission for remedial works to the existing quay walls and the construction of flood defence works between Parliament Bridge and Parnell Bridge along Morrison’s Quay and Fr Mathew Quay, and a section along Union Quay close to Trinity footbridge.

The Save Cork City Community Association then mounted a legal challenge in the High Court, but Mr Justice Richard Humphreys found the group had not made out grounds for an order quashing the permission granted to the council l and he also refused the group a stay on the works.

The group then lodged a direct or leapfrog appeal to the Supreme Court where the respondents are An Bord Pleanála, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Attorney General. Cork City Council are listed as a notice party to the proceedings.