Council urged to act on Ramelton flood defences

Donegal County Council has been urged to bolster flood defences in Ramelton.

It follows flash flooding last month which saw the Lennon burst its banks.

Businesses and homes on the Shore Road and The Quay avoided serious damage, but it followed a similar incident in 2019 when the boundary wall gave way.

In 2020, Donegal County Council appointed Byrne Looby – Arcadis in May 2020 to complete a five stage delivery process for Ramelton Flood Relief Scheme (FRS).

The process is now said to be in ‘the latter part of stage 1’.

“The Council will ensure that Ramelton has a robust solution to mitigate flood risk into the future subject to economic, social, environmental and technical constraints being satisfactorily addressed,” the Council said.

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“This is a significant task and will require detailed consideration of many challenges, not least Ramelton’s location on an important environmentally designated waterbody, its significant built cultural heritage and susceptibility to climate change.

“The scheme will require time to complete, driven by a need to build a robust case as part of the -planning submission and in reality there is no viable short term intervention which could lessen the risk due to the fact that it is mainly driven by the coastal storms which require all encompassing mitigation measures.”

Planning for the project is not expected until next year.

“There are no flood defences in Ramelton,” Councillor Pauric McGarvey said. “It is time that some work was done here. I’d like to see the Council doing some work here and seeing the problem for what it is.”