A new floood alleviation scheme for Portadown will solve a decades-old problem and help safeguard close to 400 homes and over 20 businesses.
And the public are being encouraged to have their say on the plans for their area.
Infrastructure Minister and Upper Bann MLA John O’Dowd is encouraging people to make their views known as a public consultation got underway on Friday.
An Environmental Statement for the scheme has already been produced and was consulted on in Spring 2023.
Since then, an additional site has been identified at Baltylum Meadows and designs have been further developed to address comments received during the initial consultation.
The Department would now like the public’s views on this addendum to the original Environmental Statement.
Minister O’Dowd said: “Portadown has faced flooding episodes over the last 30-40 years. This includes during Autumn 2023 when there was widespread flooding across the region after the wettest October in over 153 years of records which resulted in many watercourses in the South and East of the country rising to record levels.
“This is a vitally important scheme with proposals being developed to reduce the risk of river flooding to over 380 homes and businesses at 21 different sites across the Portadown area.
“Design of the project is nearing completion but we would like local community input.
“I urge local residents and the business community to take part in this public engagement exercise and share feedback on this addendum to the Environmental Statement for the proposed scheme.”
