Inquiry Ordered As Contractor Defends Underpass Flooding

On the day that the contractor behind Belfast's Broadway underpass - which sustained serious flooding at the weekend - denied design flaws were to blame for the incident - it has emerged that a special inquiry is to examine the issue.

An emergency meeting of the NI Regional Development Committee was told independent consultants would examine what had happened.

They will look at the intensity of the rainfall, the cause of the flooding the Broadway underpass design and construction standards.

NI Roads Service Chief Executive Geoff Allister said today: "I will be appointing, hopefully later this week, a firm of independent consultants to carry out an investigation on our behalf.

"These will be consultants who have not been involved in any way with the work to date on the (underpass) contract.

"And the sorts of things I want them to look at will be the whole background, intensity of the rainfall, to establish clearly the cause of the flooding, to look at the design and to look at the construction standards."

At one point the underpass stretch of the Westlink motorway access to the M1 was flooded with around 20 feet of water.

The main arterial road for city-bound traffic was only reopened earlier today, with the country-bound route expected to be accessible later, according to the Roads Service.

Earlier, the Highway Management Construction Project Director, Leo Martin, defended the construction project and said the weekend's heavy rain proved an "extraordinary event".

Mr Martin said: "To get a month or three-quarters of a month's rain in 12 hours is fairly exceptional rainfall,

"No doubt the culvert did its job, it was designed and built exactly in accordance with specifications and put into practice.

"But unfortunately you can't countenance for severe weather conditions like this."

Water is still lingering in the underpass, which has now turned to mud and sludge. Mr Martin said workers were continuing to clear the debris.

Stormont Executive Ministers are holding talks today, and are expected to receive an update on clean-up progress.

Traffic on the Westlink has continued to flow without major delay.

However, flooding on the railway line at Portadown has caused disruption to the Enterprise service.

Roads Minister Conor Murphy has recommended an investigation into the underpass flooding goes ahead.

(PR/JM)(BMcC)