Roadstobedressed onceevery43years

February 1988

Wexford County Council won’t physically abandon any roads this year, County Engineer Phil Callery said last week.

That was the good news for councillors at a meeting on Monday. The bad news is that there is still no money to maintain them and the cycle for dressing for surface dressing has now increased to once every forty-three years.

The county roads are now worse than ever after the wettest January in forty years.

‘We cannot maintain the roads with our level of funding and the maintenance programme will suffer severely,’ Mr Callery said.

Fine Gael TD Avril Doyle had complained that councillors were being ‘ hit between the eyes’ by the public over the condition of the roads.

Meanwhile, a former engineer described Wexford roads this week as ‘ third world’ standard and warned that potholes will eventually lead to a fatality.

Mr Matthew Henry Lavelle, Ballyruane, Screen, claimed that the County Council was putting gravel into potholes while what the roads needed was double tar spraying.

Mr Lavelle, who was involved in the construction of motorways in Britain for many years, said the roads in his own area are disgraceful, and yet the Council had done nothing to repair them.

And he rejected the claim that the Council has no money. ‘ They found money for The Heritage Park, which they should have spent on road repairs,’ he said this week.