Detailed report on Delgany to Blacklion road
A DETAILED report on the Delgany-Blacklion Road in Greystones is to be brought to the next Wicklow County Council meeting.
The decision was reached at last Monday’s council meeting at which Cllr Derek Mitchell proposed that that the design of the road (including its junction with the R761) be included in the Capital Expenditure Programme, with building to take place over the coming years.
The road currently leads to and from the largest collection of schools in the county - including Delgany National School, Templecarrig National School, St. Lawrence’s School, Gaelscoil na gCloch Liath and Greystoens Educate Together - and Cllr Mitchell voiced concerns that the road was not only in a bad state of repair but unable to accommodate the volume of traffic entailed by this assemblage of educational institutions.
‘ This is the largest education complex in Wicklow,’ he said. ‘ There will be complete traffic chaos at these schools as they are currently filling the years in sequence and are currently about one third full.
‘Good cycle paths on this new road will help hil- dren to cyle and walk, cutting down car use,’ he went on. ‘Some of this road is unsafe for walking or cycling and some does not exist yet.’
Part of the road will be constructed as part of the current planning application, but around one third of it goes through the land of approximately 25 pri- vate property owners, and so the exact land required needs to be ascertained before planning permission can be applied for.
Cllr Mitchell proposed that the council borrow the funding needed to get the road designed and built. He pointed out that the council had in the past borrowed in order to complete the Wicklow Port Access Road.
Cllr Tom Fortune insisted that this was needed to avert a ‘crisis situation’ while Cllr Pat Vance concurred that if so many schools were constructed the right infrastructure should be in place.
‘We have a really serious problem with traffic,’ said Cllr George Jones. ‘ The road can’t cope.’
Cllr John Snell rowed in with his support but claimed that he would like to see a map of the area under discussion and was concerned that investing in the road could ‘ have a knock-on effect on other vital projects in the pipeline.’ Cllr Pat Casey concurred that a vote could not be taken until the consequences for projects elsewhere in the county were known.
It was agreed that the Director of Roads would prepare a detailed report for the next council meeting.