Designs ‘prove flood plan not a walls scheme’
The state agencies overseeing the contentious €140m Cork flood defence plan have published new designs which they say prove it’s not a “walls scheme”, as its critics have claimed.
In their strongest defence of the scheme to date, the Office of Public Works (OPW) and Cork City Council issued a joint statement in which they said they hope the latest images of the Lower Lee Flood Relief Scheme will “assuage genuine misunderstanding” about the single largest investment in flood defences in the history of the state and also “challenge significant misrepresentation” of it too.
They described the narrative from some of the scheme’s fiercest opponents as “emotive” and “a fiction” and insisted that most of the proposed city centre quay defences will be knee-height only.
The new images were released as city councillors were briefed last night on the status of the project as its design nears completion.
In the pipeline for over a decade, the project, which extends some 15km from west of Ballincollig to the eastern edge of Cork City, will protect over 2,100 properties, including 900 homes and 1,200 businesses, against tidal and river flooding.
But its approach and design has faced constant criticism from groups like Save Cork City (SCC) which has branded it a “walls scheme”, with claims that higher quay walls will damage the city’s heritage and block river views.
But writing in today’s Irish Examiner, John Sydenham, the commissioner at the OPW, and Ann Doherty, chief executive of Cork City Council, said while that narrative is easy to follow and emotive, it is just not true following the long evolution of the scheme’s design and the various phases of public consultation.
“The claim that the scheme involves 15km of walls is totally untrue. It is fiction,” they said.
“There will be no high walls anywhere along the city quays. None.
The majority of quayside parapets will only be to knee height. The highest new defence is lower than a number of the existing quays.
They said the latest designs prove that those charged with delivering the project have taken on board “to the greatest extent” the feedback from all the public consultation over a decade.
“The result is a high-quality scheme that provides the essential flood defence elements while addressing the wider requirements of the citizens of Cork such as aesthetics, heritage, social, amenity, and wealth and wellbeing,” they said.
It has now been confirmed that engineers have ditched plans to build or even raise quay walls in historically sensitive areas, including the North Mall and Sullivan’s Quay, where historic railings will be retained.
Demountable barriers will be used to protect these areas instead. They will be erected only in times of extreme flood risk. Based on river height data from 2018, the barriers would not have been deployed at all last year.
A new park will be developed at the Lee Fields, with a raised bund and new cycling lanes, and its slipway will be upgraded to improve access to the river.
Flood defences have been integrated into the design of a new plaza at Ferry Walk next to Daly’s (Shakey) Bridge, again to enhance access to the river, and riverside walks and views will be maintained in Fitzgerald’s Park, with the land being gently contoured at its western end to provide flood protection.
And one of eight new river access points along the scheme will be provided at Albert Quay to provide access to a pontoon.
The dangerous and unused concrete wharf there will be replaced with a mini-plaza.
The images come just weeks ahead of the 10th anniversary of the devastating 2009 flood which crippled the city’s water supply, triggered a civic emergency, and caused an estimated €90m in damage.
Tidal floods in 2014 and in the winter of 2015/2016 caused another €50m in damage.
