Council defends the decision to close local roads schemes

OFFICIALS were quizzed over the decision not to take any more applications for rural roads to be repaired under the LIS and CIS schemes.

The Council had announced earlier this month that it wasn’t accepting any more applications for the schemes as there was a backlog of applications from previous years.

Cllr Antoin Watters said the fact that the schemes were close for applications shows how much they needed adequate funding. He feared that closing the schemes to new applications was going to lead to problems in future years. The council needed to look for more funding from central government to enable it to do the work needed.

Cllr John McGahon wanted to know if the problem was a lack of funding from national government or a lack of funds from their own resourses. ‘If we had voted to increase the property tax at our last meeting would we be in this position?’ he asked.

Director of Service Ms Catherine Duff said it had been decided to close the schemes because there had been a build up of applicaitons over the years. She assured councillors that work would be carried out but said they didn’t want to take new applications as they didn’t want to raise expectations.

Cllr Tomas Sharkey was concerned that by closing the schemes to new applications, people living on a lane in worse conditions that someone who had already applied, wouldn’t be able to apply as the scheme was closed. He feared that they would then be lower down the list when it re-opens as they hadn’t been waiting as long.

Ms Duff said all applications are scored on the basis of the standard of the road, the number of properties affected and the value for money of the work.

‘ The cases being funded this year are well deserving cases,’ she said.

‘Maybe there are more deserving cases this year that are not getting the opportunity to apply,’ commented Cllr Sharkey. ‘Should we not leave it open and everyone can be scored fairly?’ he urged.

Ms Duff said that the roads programme for the year had already been adapted by the council but they can review the programme next year. ‘It’s too late for this year,’ she said.

The Chief Executive had come to her with the proposal as there was no point in allowing a big number of applications to build up when they already had enough applications this year.

The main criteria in assessing the schemes is the condition of the road, value for money and the ability of local residents to raise the matching funding. She would take note of the points being raise for next year.