Plans to store boat run aground in Lahinch

Plans to provide a store room for a search and rescue boat have hit rough waters after concerns emerged over possible flooding on the site.

Lahinch Search and Rescue company’s plans for a new 69 sq m boat and equipment store in a car park got the go-ahead last month.

But Clare County Council’s decision has been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.

The county council decided the proposed metal-clad building would be in accordance with the North Clare Area Plan in which the area is zoned for community use. Conditions were attached.

However, a group of local residents who are “unreservedly opposed to the location” of the proposed store, has appealed the decision on a number of grounds — including “extensive flooding” at the site in January 2014.

Consultant engineers acting for seven households living near the car park claim the proposed structure will “significantly deteriorate in a short time frame and become an “eyesore” on a road that is part of the Wild Atlantic Way.

“The proposed development of a steel portal framed industrial style structure will be visually inappropriate” and “will not weather well in the marine environment at Lahinch,” the appeal states.

The residents also warn the car park site floods on occasions and “adequate consideration has not been given as to how the rescue service will operate at times of flooding”.

Consultants also claim the applicants had answered ‘no’, at the planning stage, to a question asked whether or not the site has “ever, to your knowledge, been flooded”.

According to the appeal, it “flooded on several occasions in recent years”.

It also notes home owners in the area cannot secure flood insurance due to the history of flooding.

The households objecting to the development argue that any form of further development in the area “where ground levels are increased, will increase the risk of additional flooding to their properties and other properties in this area”.

The group wants to see the existing Lahinch Search and Rescue site redeveloped “adjacent to the seafront and where there are adequate facilities”.

Documents also claim the residents are concerned “access to the rescue boat could be compromised in the event of an emergency”due to a high volume of cars using the car park in the summer months.

The group said another matter of consideration was whether the rescue boat would “have to be towed from the public car park up through the town to the seafront and beach area”.