'Chaos' on the Fota Road as crowds flock to Cannonball

Regional roads were described as ‘in chaos’ on Friday as the Cannonball Run got underway across the region. The charity fundraiser brought with it flocks of fans and spectators, many of whom allegedly abandoned their vehicles across regional roads to get a peek at the supercars on their journey.

Speaking on the topic, Cllr Sheila O’Callaghan notes that the bridges overhead the M8 motorway were lined with cars as spectators crowded to view the supercars passing, beneath before following them on to Little Island and Fota, causing ‘serious congestion’.

“A lot of people were very overwhelmed by the excitement and they just dropped cars all over the place,” Cllr O’Callaghan said.

Roads around the CircleK service station off the M8 near Fermoy/Kilworth were also busy, with many spectators lining the slip road down onto the motorway to get a look at the supercars.

Monday’s meeting of the Southern District saw Cllr Cathal Rasmussen raising the matter, stating that the R624, known as the ‘Fota Road’, saw cars parked up clogging the road in the area so attendees could go into the event at Fota Island. According to Cllr Rasmussen, while local councillors claimed to have nothing to do with the event, they were ‘blamed’ for the sitting in traffic issues.

Cllr Sinead Sheppard stated that the congestion in the region was ‘an absolute nightmare’ having been stuck in the slow-moving traffic herself.

“I was sitting in it myself I had to take my child to a soccer match and coming back it took three and a half hours for me to get from Watergrasshill back onto the Island to Cobh. We were two hours and 40 minutes sitting in traffic,” Cllr Sheppard said.

Pointing to the danger of the situation, Cllr Sheppard noted that had an ambulance needed to get through onto Fota Island, they would have ‘been in a lot of trouble’.

Discussing the issue, cllrs sought updates as to when works to upgrade the Fota road would progress and sought further detail in relation to same.