Plans for Burnfoot flood defences to be submitted to An Bord Pleanála in June

New flood defences for Burnfoot are inching closer, with the engineering consultants who are managing the scheme aiming for June 2025 to submit a planning application to An Bord Pleanála.

The Office of Public Works first approved the flood relief scheme in the summer of 2018, but progress since then has been slow and it will be another three years, at least, before homes and businesses in Burnfoot can be protected from the threat of flooding.

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While it had become increasingly prone to flooding prior to 2017, Burnfoot village was particularly badly affected in the Night of the Big Flood in August of that year. 

Dozens of homes and businesses were flooded, and the main Buncrana to Derry road was impassable due to floodwaters.

The multimillion euro flood relief scheme is designed to protect the village against a one in 200 year flooding event and consists of 400 metres of concrete flood walls and 890 metres of earthen embankments with an average height of 1.1 metres (approximately 3.5 feet) above ground level.

A new single span bridge on the R238 Buncrana-Derry road will provide substantial additional headroom for floodwaters to get away more easily than is the case with the existing bridge.

However, construction works aren’t scheduled to commence until 2027, with the scheme not due to become operational until the following year.

The consultants overseeing the scheme on behalf of the Office of Public Works and Donegal County Council say they have contacted each landowner whose property will be permanently or temporarily acquired to construct, operate and maintain the scheme.

In their latest quarterly update, RPS says the planning drawings were due to be finalised by the end of March and that will allow them to develop the compulsory purchase order maps and documents by the end of May.

RPS say they hope to be in a position to present the final details of the scheme to county councillors before a planning application is submitted to An Bord Pleanála in June.

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No major changes have been made to the overall scheme, other than slight modification to the Carnashannagh Stream culvert under the Brae Road, necessitating the extension of headwalls behind sheds and outbuildings that back onto the river upstream.

Low earthen embankments will be constructed to protect the Monreagh housing estate. The Lios na Gréine estate, which was so catastrophically flooded in August 2017 that eight social homes have been boarded up by the council and left unoccupied ever since, will be protected by a sheet piled wall, as will commercial and residential properties downstream from the bridge.

The Burnfoot river’s historical floodplain is to be re-established downstream of the bridge through a series of embankment modifications, while three properties near the Vertiv car-park which are liable to flooding from the Skeoge river will be protected by new two feet high earthen embankments.

In its best estimate timeline, RPS has set aside 2025 to deal with the planning process, and anticipates that detailed design work will commence late in the year.

It expects construction, including the provision of a new bridge on the main Buncrana-Derry road, to commence late in 2026 and continue throughout 2027, with the scheme becoming fully operational in early 2028.

When the scheme was first mooted, it was hoped to have it fully operational by the end of 2025 but that timeline has slipped away.

RPS warns that timelines are best estimates but are subject to revision. It says the project team is working hard to mitigate delays.