CEO rejects Dearey’s call

LOUTH County Council chief Joan Martin clashed with the Green Party’s Cllr Mark Dearey over the latter’s call for 10 per cent of the road’s budget to be allocated to developing a sustainable transport industry,

He explained that his motion was intended to help the council consider a radical departure in transport provision in the county.

It would be ‘a brave decision’ to allocate funds for footpaths and cycle ways and new routes through parks and along railway tracks to create direct corridors to where people work and live.

‘It’s a case of us taking a lead which I hope the Executive would follow in their consideration of capital projects.’

While he could see them making progress in towns, there was a major issue with the non-existant public transport network in villages, in areas where schools are stranded on dangerous roads and he know of one Post Office which was not served by a footpath.

His proposal would give them the opportunity to develop sustainable non-car ways of getting around.

Chief Executive Ms Joan Martin said that the only discretionary funding available was the €500,000 from development contributions, and that 10 per cent of that would be nothing when spread across the county.

‘I don’t want to go down the road of the Council having ambitions to do the devil and all with no money,’ she declared. She asked the Council to bear in mind that the revenue from development contributions had fallen. The budget for roads was down 30 or 40 per cent and the discretionary budget was 20 per cent on what it was before the budget.

She was hearing an awful lot of complaints about third class roads and they had a responsibility to maintain the existing roads.

Cllr Dearey noted that they had just heard a presentation regarding flooding earlier at the meeting. ‘ We have to change our policy on transport,’ he said. A fabulous plan for Smarter Travel in Dundalk which was sitting on a shelf. He would rather see money being spent on widening footpaths than on upgrading the N53.

‘I have given a warning that I am not prepared to decimate the funding. I won’t accept it,’ said Ms Martin.

Cllr Peter Savage said he could see the merit of both sides of the argument and suggested they write to the Department to create a budget for all counties so that they wouldn’t be paring off the low budget which they already had.