Built Environment  

 

The mounting level of development proposals in flood plains highlights the lack of a national flood plain strategy or guidelines which is still only in preparation by the OPW. When the issue of flood impact was raised as a reason for not rezoning land in East Meath in July 2005, this was ignored by county councilors, with one councilor stating that flood risk was a ridiculous argument to use against rezoning land.

Any major application for development in a flood plain is inevitably accompanied by technical consultants’ reports arguing that the site will be raised through import of spoil material above the previous highest flood level.