Floods sink council’s master plan for thousands of homes in county Cork

Plans will have to be revisited for thousands of proposed new homes in Co Cork after it emerged that areas designated for future development were flooded during the winter storms.

The latest setback for council planners came after a county councillor said a large section of land earmarked for 4,000 homes in Ballincollig had been submerged after a deluge on December 30. The report added to fears about the future of two other council master plans for major housing programmes at Carrigtwohill and at Water Rock near Midleton.

At a meeting of the Glanmire/Cobh municipal district, councillors urged planners to go back to the drawing board on the two East Cork plans in particular, after both sites were submerged.

The Carrigtwohill and Water Rock plans envisage more than 5,000 homes, four primary schools, two secondary schools, shopping centres, parks, cycleways, and a railway station.

County council officials are now to be asked to carry out a full audit of all lands earmarked for housing development.

The call will be made by Sinn Féin councillor Des O’Grady, who said he was seriously concerned about the viability of some projects. He said plans for 4,000 homes in Ballincollig also needed to be revisited.

“The site is at Maglin, Ballincollig,” he said. “On local area maps, there are parts of it which are marked down as being susceptible to flooding. But areas which had not previously flooded before on the site did so during Storm Frank in December.

“There was extensive flooding in particular in the area north of the castle which had never flooded before,” Mr O’Grady said, adding that master plans were driven by the local authority, but other areas which were developer-driven on land zoned for housing also had to be audited.

“There are six developer-driven zoned areas in Ballincollig as well, and two of them were flooded. To my knowledge they never flooded previously.”

Mr O’Grady said he wanted action taken quickly to address these issues, otherwise efforts to tackle the current housing crisis in the Metropolitan Cork area could face huge delays.

Council officials have reported they have yet to compile a list of lands flooded during Storm Frank.

However, the council acknowledged problems occurred in Carrigtwohill and Water Rock and flooding was also experienced at Shannon Park, Carrigaline.

Fine Gael councillor Anthony Barry, who lives in Carrigtwohill, previously told council officials he was concerned about flooding on most of the 160 acres of land in the town for the master plan development.

Part of the 120-hectare Water Rock site also flooded, where the new railway station is planned, near the former Dawn Meats factory.

Senior council planners said they hoped to build up to 300 houses per year on the sites. Mr O’Grady noted that the council planned to build 30,000 homes around the county, which were needed to cope not only with the current housing crisis, but also a massive increase in population projected up to the year 2045.

Short-term targets would not be achieved if flooding issues were not addressed, he said, warning of serious consequences for an increasing number of homeseekers on local authority waiting lists.