Wexford access road along beach remains cut off two years after storm

People living in a Co Wexford community have for two years had to bring items such as groceries and home heating oil across fields or a beach to their homes after a coastal access road collapsed into the sea after a storm.

Recent storms made access along the beach for those living in Kilpatrick, on the coast near the Wexford-Wicklow border, impossible as further erosion has brought the sea up to the edge of one of the properties, undermining a garden fence and leaving a 20ft cliff over the water.

Jossa Hunt Tyrell, a local resident, said she had been forced to park a 13 minute walk away from her home for some two years and had regularly brought items such as home heating oil across the fields in 20 litre drums.

She said her own house is “on a rock” but other properties in the locality are more exposed.

“There are a lot of holiday homes and caravan parks in this area but it is all sand and erosion is a huge problem,” she said.

Ms Hunt Tyrell said Wexford County Council had proposed building a new road to the properties through fields belonging to her and a neighbouring family, but progress has been slow.

Cllr Malcolm Byrne (FF), chairman of the Gorey district of Wexford County Council, said he was aware of the proposal to compulsorily acquire land but agreed the process was slow.

A complicating factor for coastal defences in the past was the presence of a breeding ground for sand martins. But Mr Byrne said recent storms had carried off so much of the beach and coastal strip that even the breeding ground was swept away.

Mr Byrne said the coastline in the area was rapidly disappearing due to coastal erosion and he estimated about 100m of land had been taken by the sea over the last 20 years.

He said the whole of the Wexford coast - about 275km – was peppered with soft sandy ground, part of the reason the are was known for its soft sandy beaches.

Many of the traditional tourist areas in the county were now under threat from storms which stripped the soft sand away, noting that Dodd’s Rocks north of Courtown where the sea wall protecting Courtown Golf Club was under pressure.