Several hundred farmers and residents rallied in Aldenne Bridge on Tuesday to demand that the lower valley’s flood works be brought forward in the Coastal Shield programme, a day before the $9bn bill cleared its final vote.
The programme allocates $2.6bn to river and valley defences, including the lower Aldenne pumping network. But sequencing puts the big coastal barriers first, with the valley’s main works starting no earlier than 2030 — a horizon growers say ignores the winter floods that have hit three of the past five years.
“The sea gets steel in 2027; we get a start date two parliaments away,” said Corin Maas of the Aldenne Growers’ Association, which organised the rally jointly with parish councils.
The infrastructure ministry counters that sequencing follows the national risk ranking, in which storm-surge exposure scores highest, and notes that three valley wards sit inside the first-priority list of 41 districts. Property-level protection grants open valley-wide this year.
Local Assembly member Sela Dray, who voted for the bill, has tabled an amendment to the programme’s first annual review requiring a re-score of inland risk after each major flood. “The ranking must live in the world,” she said, “not in the spreadsheet of 2026.”
