Safety fears for Killorglin street

KILLORGLIN Community College Deputy Principal Dónal O’Reilly and Scamps and Scholars Childcare Centre Manager Derek O’Leary are among those calling for additional safety measures on Langford Street in Killorglin.

The calls follow two separate car crashes which occurred within 20 minutes of each other on Friday morning.

Nobody was seriously injured in either incident but childcare centre manager Mr O’Leary said there are particular issues that are especially problematic in an area where two educational facilities cater for some 500 children.

He said the key issue is that educational centres, complexes and businesses located on the road attract a heavy volume of traffic and this presents dangers.

Kerry County Council (KCC) erected traffic calming signage on the street recently, as well as road markings. For Mr O’Leary, however, more deterrents are required.

“Don’t get me wrong; we’re delighted that the council did that work, and fair play to Cllr Damien Quigg for lobbying on our behalf to get that work done,” he said. “But I think more striking traffic-calming measures need to be put in place.”

Killorglin Community College Deputy Principal Dónal O’Reilly said the school was addressing the issue of parking to help alleviate problems.

“We’ve already spent some €10,000 for additional parking on the school grounds, in a bid to ease Langford Street’s issues,” Mr O’Reilly said. “We’ll spend an estimated €15,000 over the summer on widening the entrance to our school.

“We’re talking with Scamps and Scholars about providing them with some of our land for extra staff parking. But that could only be a temporary solution because that land provides the community college with its only passage for heavy plant machinery,” he added.

“We don’t want to have to use money earmarked for educational purposes on Langford Street’s problems. Many people in the locality have brought these issues up time and again, and we’re weary from calling for action.”

Meanwhile, Cllr Michael Cahill recently called on Kerry County Council, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, and the Kerry Education and Training Board to ‘immediately and jointly address issues on the street’, including traffic calming measures and car-parking.

A County Council spokesperson told The Kerryman that ‘Langford Street is quite narrow in places, which ‘presents challenges’.

“We will continue to assess whatever means are available to provide traffic calming measures at this location,” the spokesperson said.