This article is from page 70 of the 2008-08-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 70 JPG
HEAVY rains resulted in major flooding in Shannon last week and one local sports facility was among the areas heavily affected by the un- seasonal torrential downpour.
When officials from the Newtown soccer club paid a visit to the club’s erounds in Ballycasey, they were surprised but not too shocked at the sight that greeted them.
Four feet of water covered the play- ing surface at Ballycasey turning it from a soccer pitch to a temporary lake. Club chairman Brendan Wall
was among the first to inspect the damage in Thursday morning.
He explained that flooding had been an ongoing issue in the area for some years.
“I knew that after the heavy rain- fall it was probably going to be bad but when I got down to the pitch I was actually surprised at how bad it was. We’ve had flooding here before but never anything as bad as this”.
Wall, Chairman of the Clare Schoolboy Soccer League and a long time member of the Newtown club, said an adjoining stream which runs near the playing pitches, exacerbated
the flooding problem.
“It has happened three times in the past. One of the problems that makes the situation worse is the fact that there is a stream running near the pitch and when that overflows we al- ways have a problem”.
Ballycasey has been the home of Newtown soccer club since 1977 when the club played on land owned by Shannon Development.
21 years later and on the back of a major fundraising campaign, the club moved to its present site in 1998.
Wall, who last night was honored for his lifelong contribution to soc-
cer in Clare said the time has come for Clare County Council to seri- ously address the drainage system in NJetveveleee
“The pumps can’t cope with this amount of rainfall and everyone in Shannon knows this. This problem has been going on for the past few years and its time something was done about it”.