An Bord Pleanála has rejected its own inspector’s recommendation and also overturned a town council decision to approve planning for a proposed Lidl supermarket in Clonakilty, Co Cork.

Local authorities are seeking to take control of a former GAA grounds that sold for €9m eight years ago but is now partly an “environmental eyesore” in a West Cork town centre.

Joan O’Reilly was putting up floodgates in her house at Casement St in Clonakilty last night following news that Met Éireann had issued a severe weather alert.

The people of a West Cork town flooded three times in the last three months are to get a new alert system.