Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Flooded park & ride was set to close 2 years ago..
Stormont officials accused of ‘putting motorists’ lives at risk’
STORMONT officials “potentially put lives at risk” at an unauthorised park and ride where cars washed away just two weeks ago.
People in Drumahoe, Co Derry, looked on in horror as floods carried vehicles into the nearby River Faughan, while the rest of the facility was left under five feet of water.
It has since emerged planning permission for the Roads Service car park on the Glenshane Road was temporary, and the Department for Infrastructure should have closed it by December 2015.
Now concerns have been raised about whether insurers will pay out as cars parked on August 23 should never have been there.
Dean Blackwood, director of the River Faughan Anglers, said: “Here you have a department that seemed quite prepared to breach planning control with catastrophic consequences. Potentially they put lives at risk. If somebody had been in one of those cars, what would the liability have been there?”
Paperwork on the Northern Ireland planning portal shows DRD Roads Service applied for an extension to the park and ride in 2012.
But officials were told this was temporary and the whole facility should be returned to playing fields by December 2015.
Mr Blackwood visited the planning office on Friday, and said he can find no subsequent files on the site.
He added: “It was given a temporary permission of six years which expired on the July 6, 2015.
“They were allowing people in a car park that was on a floodplain that had no permission and may have brought some liability with it had something happened. Unfortunately for them something has.” More than 90 people had to be rescued by emergency services in the North West on the night the Drumahoe facility flooded – many of them trapped in cars.
While “shocked” at the department’s role, Mr Blackwood said questions also need to be asked of Derry City and Strabane District Council,
He added: “Why did they allow it to remain there?
“Not only had the department been allowing the public to park on what they knew was an unauthorised car park on a floodplain, but another section of that department oversees the performance and scrutiny role of the councils.
“If we have a public authority quite prepared to breach planning law, what faith can we have in our Government and regulatory systems to look after the
RIVER FAUGHAN ANGLERS
environment and to act in the public interest?
“It really doesn’t give you much confidence in the system.”
The Mirror asked the Department for Infrastructure and Derry City and Strabane Council for comment a week ago.
The council referred us back to DFI, which has since said nothing.
A spokesman for the Association of British Insurers revealed they would “expect” policies to pay out as “comprehensive motor insurance will cover flood damage to your vehicle”.
Asked if the car park permissions would be an issue, they added: “I do not think that would make a difference.”
Despite the Glenshane Road facility being built on a floodplain next to a protected river, no environmental assessment appears to have been carried out.
It now been closed by the department.