Wexford farmers have spent €120,000 in effort to protect lands from increased risk of coastal erosion
Wexford PeopleA small family business in south Wexford has resorted to spending €120,000 of its own money to protect its premises from incoming tides. The Fortune family have grown potatoes in Kilmore for generations and, during that time, have watched as their land has gradually been lost to coastal erosion.
And while an extensive project to protect 14 houses is continuing less than 200 metres along the coast at Seaview, the Fortunes have taken to installing boulders on the beach to protect their lands. Speaking on the family’s behalf, Councillor Jim Codd asked whether the local council could intervene in what is becoming an increasingly critical situation.
“The storms haven’t hit yet but when they do you’re looking at a business there which employs 12 people and has two family homes beside it disappearing,” he said at the October meeting of Wexford County Council (WCC). “They have taken it in hand to put rocks out and keep the water at bay at a cost of €120,000, but when the tide breaches there it will become an island. They are living in fear.”
Warning that the works at Seaview will eventually create a headland in the area, Cllr Codd said that if the council couldn’t help the Fortunes, it should at least ensure it “doesn’t inhibit them from carrying out works”.
In response director of services Eamonn Hore said the Fortunes were one of two private residences carrying out their own coastal protection works.
"Unfortunately we can’t say ‘go ahead and do that’, there does need to be a planning application,” he advised.
Chris Fortune owns the potato farm in Ballyhealy and has, like the people in Seaview, been watching with dread as chunks of the coastline disappear with each passing storm.
Speaking to this publication in January, Mr Fortune said: “You can slow (the erosion) down, the work we’re doing will prolong it, but it won’t stick for more than a few years, the land is too low,” Chris says. “The erosion has increased, definitely, over the last 7-8 years – the storm in April 2023 was a really bad one, five or six metres of the land was lost, It would have been through already only for the works we’ve done, it would have been straight through, there’s no doubt in my mind.”
Noting that the public carpark used by visitors to Ballyhealy is on his land and that he has always facilitated any requests from the council regarding its use, Chris says he just wants some help in protecting the farm.
“We just want a bit of help, we’re willing to do the work ourselves, we’re not asking for someone to come down and do it all, we just want a bit of help. We’re willing to put our money where our mouth is, we’re not dictating, it’s not millions we’re talking about. The business is in jeopardy, there are 12 people employed here.”
With construction having begun on a new phase of works at Seaview, works which are estimated to cost €657,338 and will preserve the homes of the 14 families living there, Chris admits it’s somewhat galling to be left to fend for himself.