‘Newry flooding cannot happen again’ – Bradley
SDLP Assembly Member for Newry and Armagh has said that serious lessons must be learned by all the statutory agencies involved in managing flood risk in Newry to ensure that the scenes witnessed over recent days can never be repeated again.
Speaking to Newry Times, Bradley explained, “What residents and business have had to go through in Newry because of the flooding in Bridge Street must never be allowed to happen again and I want to see collective and urgent action by all those involved in managing flood risk to ensure that is the case.
Yesterday evening SDLP Environment Minister Mark H Durkan triggered the emergency funding for households affected and they can access that £1000 from Newry and Mourne Council today.
Bradley continued, “If lessons are not learned and actions not taken following this flooding then it will undoubtedly happen again. Today I have written to the Regional Development and the Agriculture a Ministers and asked for an urgent assessment of the Bridge Street area in Newry to establish what went wrong.
“This same area was flooded in 2009 and the fact that it has happened again clearly demonstrates that not enough action was taken to combat the problem.
“In addition to this, we are well aware that the contracted cleaning and maintenance of drains was stopped by the Regional Development Minister earlier this year to save money, and whilst dealing of drains might not have solved the problem at Bridge Street, the questions being asked by many in the local community is did this exacerbate the problem.
The local MLA added, “There were other areas which experienced problem such as the Dublin Road, Doran’s Hill, Ballyholland, Geenan, Anduff, Watson’s Road and the drainage needs to be improved at these locations and indeed other areas which have experienced problems over recent days.”
Short URL: https://newrytimes.com/?p=46753
Posted by Newry Times News
on Nov 14 2014. Filed under Community, Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
