Enright to do right by securing £12 million for Newry flood defences

FOLLOWING a notice of motion calling for a funding application to be submitted to the Shared Island Unit, Alliance representative Cadogan Enright has confirmed that he hopes to acquire as much as £12 million pounds to help improve Newry flood defences.

Councillor Enright made the comment in wake of the unprecedented floods that devastated the city at the start of last month, leaving many businesses owners distressed and uncertain for the road ahead.

In the notice of motion which was submitted at this month's full council meeting, the Alliance councillor called on the council, in conjunction with several different public bodies, to submit a funding application to the shared Island unit to help better improve flood defences throughout the whole council area.

Shared Island Fund

“Recent flooding has exposed the clear inadequacy of flood defences within the District. To address this, and in the absence of a functioning Stormont Executive to swiftly invest in flood defence infrastructure, council will work with Louth County council, the Irish Government and relevant Stormont Departments to submit a funding application to the Shared Island unit for upgrades to relevant flood defence systems in the district. In particular this work will consider the ongoing Newry Flood Alleviation projects.”

Councillor Enright explained that the £12 million he hopes the council can acquire from the Shared Island Fund will work in conjunction with the existing Newry flood alleviation projects to better prepare the city for any future incidents of flooding.

“This motion follows a tour of Downpatrick with Niall Blaney who is the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Northern Ireland with my coleague Patrick Brown MLA. Patrick had been contacted by Niall Blaney and asked for a tour of the town. Niall also spent some time in Newry as well. It was Niall's suggestion that I bring such a motion requesting funding from the Shared Island Unit which is a shared capital fund.

“Whist I do not think the Shared Island Unit will give us any help for the losses that traders have experienced, and we are going to have to continue to put pressure on Westminster to get a better package to compensate for the damage and loss caused to traders in the area, I would estimate that the capital cost that needs to be done to our district is around £30 million.

“This would be about £12 million to the Newry area in addition to what has already been promised because there are works already in the pipeline for The Newry Flood Relief scheme to tackle the whole issue regarding high tide and rising sea levels.”

Councillor Enright also provided insight regarding what it is he believes may have been the cause of the flooding within Newry city itself, concurring with an assessment made by the secretary of state Chris Eaton Harris relating to the canals in the city.

Finding out what went wrong

“I have represented the council on the drainage and flooding council now for 8 years. We do have a series of plans for the Newry Flood Relief scheme and we have had several large infrastructure projects in Newcastle as well as schemes in Rostrevor.

“The Secretary of state for Northern Ireland Chris Eaton Harris made an interesting comment about Newry. His constituency is covered by canals and the point that he made was that canals never flood. They are designed in such a way that rivers nearby to them may flood but canals themselves do not flood as they are designed not to flood.

“So this was the Secretary of State saying that given his experience of the extensive network of canals in his own constituency he was wanting to know what went wrong in Newry.

“Whist I don't know what this is I do think that from a technical point of view Chris Eaton Harris is correct, canals are designed not to flood. It seems to me that council and the Rivers agency need to work together on the Newry end of things.

“The Rivers agency are saying that the Quoile Barrier and various bridges don't have the capacity in Northern Ireland, especially in the Downpatrick area to deal with where we are at. However it is a slightly different issue in Newry where you have the canal as well as the river and this would indicate to that the council has a role to find out what went wrong particularly with the canal which I understand is the primary cause of the flooding.”