Published: Wednesday, 25th August, 2010 5:00pm

Anti-flooding remedial works set to commence

Athlone Town Council is expected to carry out remedial works to help prevent flooding to some high-risk homes in the Cornamaddy and Central Terrace areas.

Cllr Kevin 'Boxer' Moran met with Director of Services Barry Kehoe last week and said he was given a commitment that work would be carried out in these locations before the end of September, in preparation for the winter.

'Boxer' stated that some of the residents affected, such as Nancy Dolan in Cornamaddy and Lena Brennan in Central Terrace, off Northgate Street, had been grappling with flooding problems on an annual basis for many years.

In recent weeks some heavy downpours almost resulted in their homes being flooded again. "These problems have been going on way too long. We gave a commitment that the work would be carried out this year and I'm told that it will be happening by the end of September," said the Fianna Fail councillor.

He stated that the flooding risk to certain houses in Cornamaddy, such as Ms Dolan's, could be alleviated by raising the height of footpaths which would help redirect rainwater as it runs down a hill.

In Central Terrace he stated that sewage and rainwater flows into a combined sewer which tends to back up during heavy rain, and remedial measures would be needed to address this in the short term. The longer-term solution is expected to come from the completion of Athlone's Main Drainage Scheme. It was announced earlier this year that no major flood relief works will take place in Parnell Square or Deerpark Road until a new study on the Shannon is completed in 2013.

While acknowledging this, Cllr Moran said the council needed to put in place a strategy for dealing with flooding risks in Athlone in general over this coming winter season.

"It's worrying times coming into the winter. Hopefully we won't see what we saw last winter, but we will see some flash flooding and we need to be able to deal with it.

"We need to work together on this and I think the council, the civil defence and the Gardai need to put a contingency plan in place so that we have sandbags, pumps and vehicles in place in case they're needed. "The county manager also gave a commitment that the council would be preparing an information leaflet on flooding and distributing it to homes and I want to see that happen. "You only have to turn on the television and watch the news to see the problems that are being caused by the weather all over the world. "Global warming is something we ignored for too long but I've started reading up on it and I think it's something we have to be prepared for," said 'Boxer'.