Local warning on delay to €20m Cork flood relief scheme

A shop owner in the Cork suburb of Blackpool has warned that he may be unable to survive a further flood if a €20 million relief scheme is delayed by campaigners opposed to the project over its impact on wildlife.

Jeremy Buckley, who owns the Daybreak Store in the centre of Blackpool, said he is worried over plans by campaign group Save the Bride Otters to stop the OPW Blackpool Flood Relief Scheme. Locals have been waiting more than a decade for a scheme to protect their homes and businesses.

“If we are flooded again, I don’t think we will be able to make a comeback. The toll that it takes on you financially and mentally and physically is enormous,” said Mr Buckley. The shop owner has been a victim of four floods in the last 20 years in the heart of Blackpool village.

“I have insurance for my shop for fire but I don’t have proper flood cover. Nobody in Blackpool who has had a claim can get flood insurance . . . or if they can there’s a caveat – limiting cover to €5,000 or €6,000 so people in the area are living with this threat and constant fear of another flood.”

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Mr Buckley said that the worst flooding came in November 2002 when Blackpool was hit twice in the space of a week. The cause was traced to a debris, including old sofas, that had blocked a culvert under the bridge near Blackpool Church. This was hauled out by the Army.

But since then there are have been further floods: in January 2010, June 2012 and March 2013 when he, his wife and children had to be rescued by Cork Fire Service from their shop as they attempted to salvage stock following a flash flood. On that occasion the river Bride burst its banks.

“The last one in 2013 was a flash flood and we didn’t have much warning. And within 15 minutes, as I was putting up the flood barriers at the front of the shop, I was up to my waist in water while my wife and my two children were trapped inside the shop as they tried to lift stock,” he said.

“I had to be hauled out by the fire brigade with a rope . . . and my wife and children had to be rescued by going across the roofs of buildings.”

Mr Buckley said that he, other traders and homeowners in Blackpool had a narrow escape from a similar disaster in December 2015. And early last month they had another, making prompt delivery of the flood relief scheme imperative.

However, Save the Bride Otters has started fundraising to take a judicial review against the relief scheme, saying the plan – which will involve the culverting of the Bride river in the heart of Blackpool – will have an enormous effect on wildlife.

Campaigner Chris Moody said the proposed flood relief scheme for a 350m stretch of the river Bride into a culvert near the Orchard Court estate will effectively bury the last open stretch of the river in the village underground.

“The Bride is a healthy little ecosystem and a neglected jewel in Blackpool. This proposal from the OPW is a completely unnecessary and expensive destruction of a very busy and valuable wildlife habitat. We have no option but to oppose it,” he added.

‘Absolutely satisfied’

However, Mr Buckley, a member of the National Flood Forum, said the OPW had consulted widely with the local community before drawing up the current plan including the proposal to culvert the Bride through the housing estate.

"I am absolutely satisfied that this plan will rectify the problem and prevent flooding in Blackpool and to be fair to the OPW, we had over 30 meetings with them and with Arup, the engineers, and Cork City Council and they went through all the options with us," said Mr Buckley.

"They looked at the idea of storing water upstream in the Glen valley but they walked us through that and computer modelled it all and it didn't stand up. This is the best solution and one we have been waiting 11 years for, only for this newly formed group to now talk about a legal challenge.

“I wonder have they ever seen any of the families who were flooded having to throw out all their belongings? I know one elderly couple who had to throw out all their family photos after one flood and people are on tenterhooks that will happen again if we don’t get this flood relief scheme.”

Mr Buckley said that there was a lot of badly needed social housing planned by the council for brownfield sites in Blackpool in areas due to be protected by the flood relief scheme. But he feared that such housing might now be put at risk if the scheme is delayed.

"These campaigners say they are concerned about the impact on otters and wildlife but the National Parks & Wildlife Service and Inland Fisheries Ireland were consulted and the OPW took their views on board and agreed to mitigation measures like otter holts, bat boxes and gravel beds for fish.

“Concern for wildlife is admirable but we had a major shopping centre built in Blackpool and the otters survived that. We had a major bypass put into Blackpool and they survived that. Yes, they will be discommoded during this construction and they’ll move upstream but they’ll come back.”