Flood prevention plans suggest raising Salthill Prom

Storm protection measures over the coming year for vulnerable areas of the city such as the Spanish Arch and the Prom are likely to be confined to maintenance and repair works, the Galway City Tribune has learned.

However, work is ongoing in putting together the long-term strategy for the protection of those vulnerable coastal areas in what will involve multi-million-euro protection programmes.

Mayor of Galway, Cllr Niall McNelis, said that with the completion of the Western CFRAMS (Catchment Flood Risk Assessment & Management Study) report, the way was now clear for the preparation of the medium to longer term plan for the protection of the city’s high-risk flood areas.

“The good news is that the money has been ring-fenced for those protection measures to be put in place – what needs to be determined now is who the lead agency will be: either the City Council or the OPW (Office of Public Works).

“In the meantime, a number of shorter-term measures will continue to be put in place along the lines of the floodgates and the new flood protection wall at Toft Park,” said Mayor McNelis.

He said that over the past year, a big effort had also been put into the putting in place of a communications system that involved tenants in vulnerable flood areas being notified well in advance of any major weather/flood-risk event on the way.

“I suppose that the real challenge here is to put in place adequate flood defences while at the same time not diminishing the wonderful amenity value of places like the Spanish Arch and the Prom.

“This will obviously involve a multi-agency approach but I believe that with proper planning and consultation, this twin-aim can be achieved. The reality of climate change is that we can expect more storms and weather events into the future,” said Mayor McNelis.

A spokesperson for the City Council said that over recent years, there was a growing pattern of severe weather events that now required the putting in place of a long-term flood defence strategy.

“We are currently engaged in putting in place a series of maintenance and repair projects that will be undertaken in 2019 while the longer-term plan will involve an input from a number of different agencies.

“As regards the longer-term strategy, the flood protection measures to be put in place will have to embrace environmental and amenity aspects of locations such as the Spanish Arch and the Prom,” said the spokesperson.

Some of the more ‘game changing’ aspects of the longer-term protection plan could involve a raising of the level of the Prom rock armour to cope with the increasing sea surges and a possible relocation of the current main Prom car-park.

Another possible ‘major project’ would involve the construction of a permanent flood barrier in the Docks area to prevent a surge over-topping from following the ‘lie of the land’ and then flooding the Spanish Parade/Spanish Arch areas, as happened with Storm Eleanor on the Tuesday evening of January 2 this year.