Cork County Council urged to look to UK and consider natural flood defences

CORK County Council is being urged to liaise with local authorities in Britain that have successfully implemented natural flood defences with a view to implementing such defences in East Cork while people in the area wait for a planned flood relief scheme.

Social Democrats councillor Liam Quaide said that land management practices that have been successfully implemented in other countries could be pursued in the interim and could form a “core component of our flood relief solutions in any case for Midleton and more broadly in East Cork and across the county”.

“Any affected resident I’ve spoken to accepts that the flood relief scheme will constitute the main solution for Midleton and that it is subject to a long and tedious planning process,” said Mr Quaide, who is bringing a motion on the subject to the floor of Cork County Council during a meeting today.

He said the council should engage with councils in Britain that have successfully implemented natural flood defences which “are essentially about respecting the force of nature and the need to work with it”.

“Flood risk is a complex problem that will involve both engineering and nature-based solutions and will require close co-ordination between a number of agencies, including the Department of Agriculture.

“One such measure involves paying farmers to allow land to flood.

“Strategic planting of vegetation to soak up excess water is also key.”

Mr Quaide pointed to the example of Pickering in north Yorkshire which was flooded four times and refused a £20m flood defence scheme because the cost was deemed too high to protect a limited number of residents.

“A project was developed that changed land management practices around the town that slowed the flow of water downstream,” he said, adding that the town has remained dry in recent years while other towns have been repeatedly flooded.