Lapland Express News Today

More than half the businesses who applied for the government’s one-off payment of £7,500 following the recent floods in Downpatrick have now been informed that they would not be eligible to receive this financial support.

Initial grants of £7,500 will be paid to businesses in Newry and Downpatrick from next Monday.

Initial grants of £7,500 will be paid to businesses in Newry and Downpatrick from next Monday.

A third day of catastrophic flooding has caused “apocalyptic scenes” in parts of Northern Ireland with one distraught business owner lamenting “it’s like the end of the world”.

Volunteers at the Downpatrick and Co Down Railway could only watch on in horror as the visitor attraction became swamped in flood water, while many businesses in the town centre were also left devastated.