By Lesley Walsh
RECENT storms have caused a new sink hole along a popular coastal route in Holywood whose residents have been forced to shell out thousands of pounds to repair in recent years.
The householders living along Station Road said the recent bad weather also caused considerable damage to the adjacent sea defences and are anxiously awaiting word from Ards and North Down Council on whether it will agree to fund their costly upkeep in future.
Residents have been calling on the council to pay for decaying toe-beams lining the outer side of the sea wall after bad weather caused damage last autumn, with their appeals going before a local authority committee last month.
Resident Barbara McMinnis outlined the repercussions of the most recent spell of stormy weather, revealing the coastal path sustained significant damage on February 5.
“A sinkhole appeared adjacent to Royal Belfast Golf Club, and a section of the path in front of Frenchwood Park, beside us, was structurally damaged.”
She said residents were still awaiting a response to the Notice of Motion concerning financial responsibility of the sea defences, which lines the route forming an integral part of the North Down Coastal Path and Ulster Way.
“The seawall at Station Road is in a fragile condition and the seaside toe-beam has deteriorated further since the storm,” she added.
The notice of motion she referred to was brought before the council’s Environment Committee in January.
At that meeting, local political representatives, aldermen Martin McRandal and Lorna McAlpine asked the council to ‘reassess whether it has responsibility for maintaining the road and for strengthening the sea wall and sea defences along the North Down coastal path section of Station Road’.
In their motion, which was agreed by members, the Alliance members reminded the council that it had been ‘prepared to assume responsibility for the road and sea defences under the failed Greenway project’, several years earlier.
Council officials agreed to bring back a report on the issue to a later committee meeting.
The Station Road residents had also petitioned the help of the borough’s ratepayers to force the council to consider taking over its upkeep, in a public voting exercise which attracted 718 votes of support.
People living in 15 houses along the route have already spent £70,000 of their own money repairing sink holes in the road in recent years, and just last November learned that repairs to the sea wall were also urgently needed.
But to carry out those repairs, they first had to seek a Marine Licence which would have cost £5,000, on top of the assistance of expensive experts appraised in such complex matters.
In 1992 they had to contribute £5,000 towards a £40,000 bill to install the now decayed toe-beam, with the rest of the costs shared between the former North Down Borough Council and the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Regional Affairs.
Following the recent bad weather, the council had closed the section of the route in question on health and safety grounds.
