If I may please let me outline my views on flood management in Skibbereen and my vision for an Environmental Park in the marsh area of the town; a project that aims to protect the town from future flooding while providing an innovative community space that would transform Skibbereen into a model for sustainable development.
This approach to the flood management of Skibbereen looks to open up new management options that explore the potential for innovative partnerships between the Planning Authority, the Office of Public Works as well as environmental and community groups.
The concept must be a community lead approach accommodating flood defence with environmental protection while simultaneously enhancing the urban environment.
With environmentally sympathetic designs, radical concepts, technological interventions and a shift in perception we can create an environment that will serve to both protect and enhance the town of Skibbereen while also creating a unique sense of place for the community and visitor.
CREATING PLACES NOT EMPTY SPACES
The area of the marsh can be developed to create a new meeting ground between nature and people in creating a new vision for Skibbereen.
It can involve the transformation of the town providing an educational, recreational and amenity area for the community. The whole area could include an amphitheatre, walking areas, community gardens, public walkways, streams, constructed wetlands and outdoor spaces that integrate the town with nature while offering a unique long term protection to the town from future risk of flooding and sea level risk.
The development plan would include riverside seating, picnic areas and allow for public works of art within the public realm while also providing an array of natural environments from constructed wetlands to woodland, meadows, marshland and shallow and deep ponds with varying aquatic margins.
RIVER OF OPPORTUNITY
Land and water are intrinsically linked and nowhere more so than in Skibbereen where the River Ilen meanders its way to the sea. Preserving the riverside land areas is not only crucial to future generations but also to the long term sustainability of the town.
The core aims of any flood management plan must be first and foremost the protection of Skibbereen from future flooding. Secondly, the creation of an innovative community space that will provide new amenities for the town, and also offer alternative landscapes that will be a visitor attraction while developing a new pedestrian gateway to the town of Skibbereen.
The ability of this new park to meet the urgent needs of the town to alleviate flooding while aspiring to be something of wider importance is a key starting point to the Enviro Park vision.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
The site would be set out in various sections to provide a multifunctional park, creating new open public spaces, fulfilling the need for additional car parking spaces, while allowing a variety of amenity uses, nature conservation and community gardens. The themes of environment and sustainability in the 21st century are appropriate to underpin such multi-facetted proposals applicable as it is to all society.
A diverse landscape of hills, valleys, waterbodies, woodland, and open fields can give a variety of habitats and enclosure providing opportunities for recreation, relaxation, inspiration, sculpture, craft, wildlife trails, fitness trails, adventure play, walks, meeting and performance space with an integrated drainage system to protect the town from future floods. Ideas could include, trail bike riding areas a skateboarding arena, public amphitheatre, a famine commemoration park, a mini golf or pitch and putt course providing a variety of themes and uses while also promoting Skibbereen as a visitor attraction.
Its immediate proximity to the town offers enormous opportunities in particular the potential to refocus the town on the river and its immediate environment. The local community and the town stand to benefit greatly from such an inclusive vision for a new Enviro Park while also giving the potential for a new focus for the southern part of the town.
The park needs to be multifunctional, providing flood relief while also offering new opportunities to culturally enhance the town and improve its environment. Such a park would illustrate the human ability to reciprocate with nature.
The methodology of creating an Enviro Park must be one of inclusive community involvement in designing, implementation and managing elements within it.
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
Firstly, as follows is a conceptual outline for the Enviro Park.
Funding from the OPW for flood relief study should be used to fund the production of a feasibility study that would include consultation with the local authority, landowners, business associations, community groups, schools and environmental interest groups.
The next phase of the plan’s implementation would involve constructing river embankments to act as flood water retainers. The design of the embankments would include a number of automated sluice gates to redirect flood waters within the Enviro Park when the town is at risk of flooding.
The ground level within the park would be reduced and designed to retain substantial volumes of water by creating a series of undulating low hills and valleys. The existing pumping station on the lands would be re-designed and equipped to allow for dewatering the Park when flood waters reside in the river Ilen.
LOCAL ENHANCEMENT
The extended park can be accessed by four bridges, with the new pedestrian bridge acting as the focal point for pedestrian entry into the town. Limited parking could be provided on raised parking lots thereby securing additional parking for the town.
The Enviro Park would be the first of its kind in Ireland reshaping and redesigning Skibbereen for the 21st Century. This unique opportunity has the potential to create activities for old and young that will draw people to the park and the town while providing new visitor attractions for Skibbereen.
I believe, that the way in which we as a community design and ultimately use these lands will be a defining moment for planning in Ireland. The very future of the town depends on it. As a community we must face up to the challenges and risks that will impact on the town and none is more alarming than climate change, flooding and the inevitability of sea level rises in the coming decades.
This concept offers the possibility for the community of Skibbereen to engage with nature, rather than fight against it. It requires imagination, community inspiration and co-operation with nature.
ON THE WATERFRONT
What if in the future the predictions of climate change are correct and we will witness sea level rise, continued and increased flooding and extreme weather events such as the extreme flooding of 2009. If history is anything to go by, we will be ready for neither unless we learn from our mistakes and design innovative solutions now to work with nature and support our communities.
The idea that future sea levels will rise is now a certainty; this will impact on coastal and inland tidal river communities such as Skibbereen which has an established history of flooding.
How could the landscape look if the urban area was designed to help alleviate future flooding? The future scenario is particularly relevant now to Skibbereen as it’s commences yet another flood impact study and attempts to design future flood alleviation for the town.
It is my belief that the conversion of the marsh area into an innovative EnviroPark could achieve just this and breathe new life into Skibbereen.
AFTER THE FLOODS
We don’t have to cast our minds back that far to remember the extraordinarily difficult circumstances that Skibbereen was in twenty years ago when it had the largest level of emigration of any community in Ireland. I have been privileged to have a long association with the town and remember the terrible floods in 1987 that closed some businesses permanently such as the wholesale shrubbery and nursery business which was located on the marsh.
We are now in the grips of another major recession, one that may last longer and have deeper social and economic implications for this country and particularly the younger generation who are faced with little prospect of employment. On top of that we have witnessed major social and economic impacts associated with extreme weather events on a scale not previously experienced in this country in the past century. Catastrophic flooding was experienced across Ireland and in particular in Skibbereen, Bandon and Cork City. The cost to the insurance industry for the recent unprecedented flooding and extremely cold spell that Ireland endured was in excess of €550 million. T his figure does not portray the true economic cost in jobs and added indebtedness to businesses and householders for repair and renovation to damaged property and many of them will be unable to get insurance in the future.
Enormous and painful lessons are being learned, we are dealing with people and communities and must protect ourselves from the destructive power of nature which we cannot control.
If we want a future for Skibbereen town, we must be creative. If we want to protect our community from future flooding, we must provide innovative and cost-effective solutions to manage the environment in a more sustainable manner.
ON THE EDGE OF POSSIBILITY
The risks associated with flooding in Skibbereen offer what is probably the greatest new landscape opportunity of our generation.
To reduce vulnerability and future risks of flooding we must seize the opportunity to redesign urban spaces, to work with nature and to forge innovative lasting solutions that build a sustainable future.
I believe that the development of an Environmental Park could provide a showcase for creative, innovative, urban landscape flood alleviation design.
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