£10 million reservoir upgrade watered down

DOUBT has been cast over a multi-million pound plan to safeguard the water supply for thousands of homes across mid Tyrone, following a recent announcement from NI Water.

The government owned utilities provider had been seeking approval for a £10 million scheme to improve an ‘inadequate’ reservoir that provides drinking water for Loughmacrory, Carrickmore, Beragh, Sixmilecross, Creggan and the surrounding rural area.

It was hoped that the installation of a new ‘large capacity water tank’ at the Loughmacrory Hill Service Reservoir would limit ‘wide-scale interruptions’ associated with the current infrastructure, which is ‘too small to meet customer requirements at all times and is particularly stressed during times of high demand’.

However, in a public letter to Fermanagh and Omagh District Council last week, NI Water seemed to suggest that the upgrade had, in some sense, fallen through.

“NI Water has recognised that there are several significant challenges associated with the acquisition of land and planning approvals which must be in place before we can build a larger storage facility on the Hill.

“Regrettably, these issues will not be resolved in time to start building the scheme within the PC21 period.”

However, NI Water has said an ‘interim solution’ is in place, which will ‘facilitate additional resilience’ to the reservoir and water supply zone it feeds.

This scheme is currently at appraisal stage.

Responding to the news, Cllr Pádraigín Kelly, a Loughmacrory native, said, “It’s disappointing that it is an interim solution.

“NI Water have gone a roundabout way to tell us that they are not doing what they had planned to do, which is disappointing from our end in Loughmacrory.

“I would like to ask them: How much money they are putting into this interim and what is the deficit (compared) to what they had planned to put in?

“I know it is at the appraisal stage and I know any solution is obviously welcome.

“But, at the end of the day, they had put this money aside and they are not putting it into it.”