Westport businesses ‘left without insurance’

The area around the Mall River in Westport is now a designated flood relief location and the council has a flood management system in place to manage it, according to an engineer with Mayo Co Council.

Area engineer Heather Gibbons provided details on the flood management system at last week’s meeting of Westport-Belmullet Municipal District, but local councillor Brendan Mulroy criticised council management for not applying for a flood relief grant. 

“The fact there is funding and grants available for designated flood areas like this yet we didn’t apply for one that could help alleviate the flooding issues there shows serious neglect and is really intolerable. This is hard to take as elected representatives in Westport.”

Cllr Mulroy said that a 2024-2030 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, conducted for Mayo County Council, found that a substantial portion of the town centre, including The Mall, lies within areas at risk of flooding and local businesses have been unable to get insurance. 

“At no stage was Westport put in for flood relief funding and all those businesses can’t get insurance now and I would have thought the Mall in Westport would have been put in for one of these schemes. The people of that area are in a disastrous situation and will never get insurance again, all because of the that report that has left them high and dry. There is a total disregard by this council for these and we can’t stand over that.” 

Cllr Sean Carey said many parts of Belmullet are also being hit by flooding issues from Bayview to Doohoma and Rinroe into Carrowtigue, adding: “We are constantly highlighting this and can only hope they will be looked after now because nothing was done with them for years and they are going to be washed away by the tide. Protection is needed and hopefully there will be some funding also included for this.”

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.