*An update was given to elected members of the Shannon MD.
SHORTCUTS will not be taken when advancing the €30m Shannon Town and Environs Flood Relief Scheme, senior officials in Clare County Council have said.
2030 is now viewed as the most likely completion date for the scheme, initial works began in August 2020.
When Shannon Town and Shannon Airport were beginning to develop over seven decades ago, a series of embankments with an approximate length of 6km were constructed along the north side of the Shannon Estuary to separate the low-lying lands from the tidal waters to the south which would facilitate this development.
Coastal and fluvial sources now serve as a flood risk for both the Town and Airport. The Office of Public Works (OPW) working in partnership with Clare County Council and other Local Authorities completed the Shannon Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management (CFRAM) Study which concluded that a flood relief scheme would be viable and effective for the community. RPS were appointed in July 2020 to further assess the CFRAM Study and to identify options and prepare a detailed scheme for Shannon which is economically viable and environmentally sustainable.
PJ Griffin who is RPS’ technical lead on the scheme confirmed that all third-party survey works have now been completed and that the scheme was still at stage one of five, “We’ve done an awful lot of environmental assessments but more to do”. He said they are now beginning the process of identifying all viable options for the scheme. “We need to identify all the options, review them and then complete environmental assessment. We are hoping to submit consent for a planning application next year, then go onto detailed design and construction”.
Construction could begin in the latter end of 2026, he outlined. “These projects take an awful long time to deliver, planning consent we need to get there first but is outside our control in terms of the timeframe, we’ve assumed a reasonable timeframe,” Griffin added.
Speaking at a meeting of the Shannon Municipal District, Cllr Gerry Flynn (IND) stressed, “This is a crucial piece of infrastructure for Shannon Town, I’ve lived in Shannon most of my life, we received a response from former senior engineer Tom Tiernan a few years ago which frightened the life out of us when it highlighted how compromised Shannon was”. He said “a significant amount of funding” was ring-fenced for the scheme.
Seán Lenihan of the project management office in Clare County Council said the total cost of the scheme will be in the region of €30m. “The surveys are complicated. They are slow moving beasts by nature, we’re moving it along as quickly as we can. We wouldn’t get approved at OPW level without the surveys, they are funding part of it and the Department of Transport, we can’t take shortcuts”.
Cathaoirleach of the Shannon MD, Cllr Michael Begley (IND) insisted he wasn’t asking officials involved to “take shortcuts”. He explained, “the total environmental process should be looked at to avoid where the obvious result will be done at the end of the day”.
Attending his final meeting as Director of Services for the Shannon MD, Liam Conneally acknowledged the public consultation elements of the scheme would be “very important”. He stated, “the elected members have just seen the front end of this, we need the general public to see the amount of work going on under the surface, it is about protecting Shannon Town for the next 100 years, we have to do it right this time and make sure the prosperity of the Airport, Town are protected and properly protected, if we’ve to spend an extra season collecting winter bird data in the context of what we’re doing it will be worth it”.
