Fears new Naas estate will continue to flood neighbour

A COUNCILLOR who is concerned that almost 400 houses dropped into a floodplain in Naas will continue to flood its older neighbouring estate, has taken a ‘wait and see’ attitude with the developer’s promised measures of alleviation.

Following heavy rain in both January and February caused flooding in the 40-year old Mountain View Estate off the Blessington Road, the residents contacted a neighbour, cllr Ann Breen, to investigate.

Cllr Breen was immediately of the view that the 395 homes built over the last four years slightly to the north west of Mountain View in what she believes was a flood plain, thereby causing the spillover.

“This is very serious,” she said.

“Mountain View has been there for 40 years, and I’ve lived behind them for 47 years, and it never flooded.

“Then they (Ballymore Properties) start building 395 houses in Stonehaven in that?

“That land was originally a floodplain. My kids used to play in those fields, and sometimes wouldn’t be let because these big ponds would develop there after heavy rain."

Knowing this, cllr Breen brought a question on the issue to the March meeting of the Naas Municipal District recently in Áras Cill Dara.

“Can the council provide an update on the contingency plans by the developers Ballymore Homes of the Stonehaven Estate to prevent any further flooding at Mountain View Estate?” she enquired, only to get a reasonable prompt and positive reply from Liam McNeela, a senior engineer at the Development Section in the formal reply from the executive.

Work Proposed

“Development control became aware of flooding issues in Mountain View following a heavy rainfall event on 3 January, and again more recently on the weekend of 22/23 February,” he acknowledged. 

“A site visit was carried out by the development control engineer to both Stonehaven — which is an active construction site — and Mountain View on 24 February,” he revealed. 

“It was clear that surface water had spilled over from the southwestern corner of the Stonehaven development into Mountain View as a result of the heavy rainfall, and the incomplete nature of the drainage infrastructure.

“As a result, the maximum discharge rate for ‘trade effluent’ to the nearby stream that passes under the Blessington Road was reached, as allowed under the Section 4 discharge licence,” he explained. 

Trade effluent is the liquid waste from an industrial site that runs off into public sewers. 

“To resolve this issue, the developer has committed to commencing construction of the permanent attenuation pond in the southwestern corner of the site in the coming weeks,” he revealed.

“When completed, this pond will add permanent storage capacity during periods of heavy rainfall before being filtered and discharged into the stream.

“The developer has also agreed to install a drain and soil bank along their boundary to divert surface water that had been flowing after a period of heavy rain from an old ditch at the top end of their site, to prevent a reoccurrence of surface water reaching Mountain View. These works are progressing well and are being monitored by development control."

Cllr Breen was not completely satisfied with this reply.

“They were supposed to put in five attenuation tanks and they didn’t,” she said.

“Residents in Mountain View have been very anxious, but not with the original developer who said he would put in five attenuation tanks. He sold to Ballymore with those promises intact,” she claimed.

“On 3 January, Mountain View had their green area as a river,” she said.

“Resident are quite worried their estate might not get re-classified as ‘Flood Plain’, and their insurance will go up,” she said.

“Then on 22 February there was a lot of rain, and it was the same thing, only worse."