SEVERE flooding has blighted parts of county Fermanagh in recent years, causing untold misery to many local households.

However, Belleek man, Sean O’Loughlin, who lives on Lough Shore Road, close to the border with Donegal, believes that this could be alleviated by deepening the channel where Lower Lough Erne meets River Erne at the Roscor viaduct, near his home town.

Mr O’Loughlin, born and raised in the area, believes that, in times of “exceptional wet weather”, this would allow the extra water flowing into Upper and Lower Lough Erne to leave quicker.

Although he freely admits to not being an expert, the retired man said that the deepening of the channel near his home had been previously proposed by engineers looking at ways to improve the drainage of Lough Erne in a number of reports dating back to the 1850s.

In a paper entitled Plan of Proposed Improvements in Lough Erne, published in 1852, the surveyor for the county Roderick Gray revealed the depth from the lower lake to the entrance of the river “abruptly” diminished from 63 feet to “seven or eight” feet.

Mr Gray proposed “dredging extensively” in the vicinity of Roscor Island for the purpose of rendering the opening of the river free from obstruction.

The deepening and widening of the River Erne between Lower Lough Erne and Belleek was also discussed in a talk given by JLW Yates to the Institute of Civil Engineers in April 1957.

A copy of the speech given by Mr Yates is kept in Enniskillen Library.

Mr O’Loughlin said that, in his talk, Mr Yates said that the two worst recorded floods in the Lough Erne area up to that point had been a 12-day flood between November 11 and 22, 1901 and a 42-day flood between January 1 and February 11, 1928.

“There probably have been worse floods in recent years,” the Belleek man said.

He said that, in 1852, Mr Gray had identified the obstruction between the lower lake and the river at Roscor, and in the talk given by Mr Yates more than 100 years later, the need to deepen this area was also identified.

Mr O’Loughlin said: “It is hard to understand why this was not done in the Erne Drainage Scheme of the 1950s, especially as the scheme was completed a year ahead of schedule and well under budget.”

The Department of Infrastructure has confirmed that Transport NI is currently carrying out investigations and analysis in relation to the strengthening and repair of the ageing Roscor viaduct.

A spokesperson for the department has said that work to establish the “preferred engineering solution” is expected to be complete in 2017.

Mr O’Loughlin believes that work to deepen the channel between the lake and Roscor should also be included in these plans.

“If it is not done now, it will never be done,” he said.

Although he acknowledged that there would be opposition to his proposal because of the impact it would have on the local environment, Mr O’Loughlin added:

“There is much more damage being done to the environment in the whole catchment area of the Erne. Some months back, some people seems to think that the flooding was caused by water not getting away quick enough at Belleek. I hope they will investigate the area between Roscor and the lower lake.”

However, the spokesperson for the Department of Infrastructure said that a study carried out in 2013 had indicated that any channel deepening works at the Roscor viaduct would have “no impact” on the flooding experienced in the Upper Lough.

The comprehensive review of the Lough Erne operating regime was carried out following a recommendation by the Flooding Taskforce established in the wake of the flooding in 2009.

The spokesperson said: “The study investigated various options for improvement, particularly changes to the management of water levels and physical changes to the river system.

“The study established that “any measures to reduce flood levels on Lower Lough Erne (such as increasing the capacity of the Belleek channel) would have little effect on peak levels on Upper Lough Erne during the largest floods”.

“The Roscor viaduct is a localised structure on the Belleek channel, and the study has indicated any channel deepening works at this location would have no impact on the flooding experienced in the Upper Lough.”