Laois public to view updated €7m Mountmellick flood barrier plan

Six years since a great flood hit Mountmellick in November 2017, the public are again being invited to view a major plan to build flood barriers to prevent a similar catastrophe in the future.

The flood wreaked damage to nearly 100 homes and businesses and eventually shut down the N80 national road through the town.

It was caused by multiple rivers including the Owenass burst their banks and merging outside the town after heavy rains, resulting in the worst flood in living memory.

Flood walls and embankments are still not built, but an updated design will be revealed to the public in an open day.

Local Cllr Paddy Bracken wsa among six in the Mountmellick Borris-in-Ossory Municipal District who got a private preview of the new plans.

He welcomes them and says that the plan has been enlarged and is now expected to cost some €7 million.

"It is a bigger scheme than first planned as we had flooding since 2017. Maybe in a way the delay was positive in that sense. I understand it will cost over €7 million, partly due to price hikes," he told the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

Laois County Council is holding the public information day for everyone to view the updated Mountmellick Flood Relief Scheme on Tuesday, September 12.

Engineer Adrian Barrett is overseeing the scheme.

"At the information day, the preferred option for the scheme will be presented to the public," he told the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

It is understood locally that the day will be held in the MDA building in Irishtown, which itself was flooded back in 2017, with children rescued from the creche through deep water in the arms of staff and firefighters.

The event is expected to take place from 3pm to 8pm, with representatives there from JBA Consultants who drew up the plans, and Laois County Council.

However Mr Barrett said that the time and venue would be confirmed closer to the date.

It is a long haul to get the flood defences built, with the cost more than doubling from the initial €3.2 million budget announced in 2018.

It is four years since the last public information day, when three options were put on display in the MDA Mountmellick for the public to give their views.

Back then the scheme was promised to be completed by December 2023.

It was later expanded in size which has delayed its expected completion by at least three years, after the impacts of Storms Ciara, Denis and Jorge in early 2020.

The expanded scheme will require 6km of embankments, 1km of flood walls, a replacement bridge over the Owenass at the Four Roads junction, 200m of localised road raising, and an estimated 10.5Ha (26 acres) of land purchases.

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In the meantime, Laois County Council said it has carried out "comprehensive drainage maintenance from 2020 to 2022" in Mountmellick and along the River Barrow to a point 8km downstream, clearing trees, debris and deposits obstructing flow, and will continue to do so.

On the scheme's website www.Mountmellickfrs.ie, the timeline predicts it will be operational by late 2026.
Following the open day, an Environmental Impact Assessment must be written up, and after that the plan will be submitted to An Bord Pleanála. The planning decision is expected to take a year. Construction will take up to two further years.

A grant scheme introduced in 2018 covering up to 50% of the cost of standard demountable flood barriers for individual properties subject to flood risk is still available.