Councillor says forestry being destroyed by flooding seawater

A WEST Mayo councillor has called on Mayo County Council to ‘set in motion’ the process to repair a defence wall near Newport where property is being flooded.
Independent councillor Michael Holmes called on officials from Mayo County Council to meet with residents in Rossanrubble, located close to Newport, who for the past year have seen their property flooded, following the collapse of a flood defence wall.
“It is causing major problems,” Cllr Holmes told last week’s monthly meeting of the West Mayo Municipal District.
“The flood defence wall collapsed there in the high tide a year ago or thereabouts. It is flooding five or six people’s property to a very bad state. One farmer has a huge area of forestry which is going to be all destroyed because the sea water is coming in and there are also sheds being flooded. It is now being flooded any time the tide comes in, but obviously when there is a very high tide and a bit of wind it does serious damage,” said Cllr Holmes, who added he was hopeful council officials will meet with the landowners and plans to replace the wall will he set in motion. He did also accept that there could be delays because the area is designated a Special Area of Conservation and other agencies will be involved.

Carrowholly flooding
Meanwhile the Manager for the West Mayo Municipal District, Padraic Walsh, told councillors that they had further meetings with the Office of Public Works (OPW) and said that ‘progress has been made for a viable solution for Carrowholly’.
Severe flooding destroyed many homes in the area during storms in early 2014 and there have been constant fears of more flooding during all the storms that have taken place since then. Residents and local councillors have been very vocal in their criticism of the the OPW and their failure to tackle the issue as a matter of urgency.
Last month, Minister Michael Ring announced that progress has been made on the issue and he was confident that the flood relief works in Carrowholly will get underway in September. When pressed by councillors on whether the work will commence in September, Mr Walsh was non-committal saying that there were a lot of challenges and ‘we working as quickly and as hard as we can’.