Concern in Bandon over €16m flood scheme

Residents and traders in a West Cork town have expressed concern they may be hit by a third major flood in as many years next winter if negotiations don't succeed on a major €16 million flood relief scheme for the town. *

Contractor Wills Brothers removed all its heavy machinery from the Bandon Flood Relief Scheme earlier this month in a dispute with the Office of Public Works (OPW) over payments. Locals in the town fear the delay could be up to a year and leave the town exposed to the risk of another winter flood.

Local businessman and editor of The Opinion magazine, Eddie Goggin, who has been outspoken on the need for the flood relief scheme, told The Irish Times that people in the town are worried that an entire year may be lost if dredging work on the river Bandon isn't carried out this summer.

Dredging

“A major part of the scheme is the dredging of the river from O’Driscoll’s Bridge upstream to the main bridge in the town. Now because of restrictions on dredging by the Inland Fisheries to allow salmon upstream to spawn, that work can only be carried out between May 1st to September 30th.

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“It’s absolutely vital that Wills Brothers and the OPW sort out their differences and they get started on the dredging, because if they don’t get the work done and don’t get out of the river by September 30th, we’ve lost another year. So the whole timing of this is absolutely disastrous.

“People are in shock and disbelief. Bandon has been hit by three really bad floods; back in 2009 when some of the streets were under three and four feet of water, and then we got hit again in December 2015 by storm Desmond and a month later in January 2016 by storm Frank.

“We lost the guts of two years on the flood relief scheme some years back over a legal dispute, so if we were to lose another year now, when we’re facing into another winter when the town could get another lash of floods, it would be an absolute disaster and people are very angry about it.”

Unforeseen problems

The exact reason for the disruption in the project is not clear, but it is understood the company encountered a number of unforeseen problems during early exploratory work which added to their costs for the project, which was originally estimated to cost €11 million.

Contacted by The Irish Times, the OPW declined to comment other than to say "Certain matters in relation to the Bandon flood relief scheme are currently under discussion between the Office of Public Works and Wills Bros Ltd. The parties are working to resolve the issues that have arisen."

Wills Brothers, which is based in Co Mayo, declined to respond to a series of detailed questions sent by The Irish Times about the project, which began when they moved into the town in June 2016 to begin preparatory pipe-laying and drainage works.

The scheme involves the construction of new walls and embankments, the replacement of an old footbridge with several arches with a new structure with a single span, the underpinning of Bandon Bridge and the construction of a rock ramp for fish passage.

It also involves excavating or dredging of the river for some 3.5kms from O’Driscoll’s Bridge at Curranure upstream to Bandon Bridge to a depth of 1.6 metres to help increase capacity in the river, which is tidal to within six kilometres downstream of the town.

Clarification April 27th, 2017:  Wills Brothers has stated that it has not withdrawn from this project.