Works set for Board of Works Road in Beaufort

REPAIR works will finally take place on a “very dangerous” Beaufort road in the new year, on almost a kilometre of road where Irish Water replaced water pipes in early 2018.

This was announced last Friday by Kerry County Council Engineer Colm Mangan at a Kenmare Municipal District meeting, in response to a deputation on behalf of residents of the Board of Works road. The deputation was requested by Fianna Fáil Councillor Michael Cahill.

Mr Mangan explained that Irish Water replaced roughly 1.5 kilometres of pipe along the road in recent years, in response to frequent water outages at the location.

While he said 500 metres of this had been “well restored”, only temporary restoration was carried out on a trench along the remaining 900 metres.

Repairs to the water pipe over the years had also left the other side of the road in a patchy condition. Speaking on behalf of the deputation, Anthony O’Connor explained that the road is extremely busy, in part due to thousands of hill-walkers using it to travel to the McGillicuddy Reeks. It is also used by people travelling to tourist attractions such as the Gap of Dunlow and the Black Valley, the meeting heard.

“The road is in a very dangerous state,” he said. “There’s a lot of uneven surface, no road markings, you have drain blockages.”

He said motorists sometimes have to drive on the middle of the road or even move onto the other side of the road due to its condition.

“Are we wasting our time coming in here?” he asked, referring to the many occasions the issue had been brought up at past council meetings.

While acknowledging the damages cause by Irish Water works, he said the road’s issues “go deeper than that. It was built in a different era... It needs to be built again from the ground up, with proper foundations.”

Mr Mangan told the deputation that Kerry County Council will carry out works on behalf of Irish Water along these 900 metres early in the new year.

“We’ll cut out the whole trench all the way along, down to a depth of about three inches, and replace it with hot tar,” Mr Mangan said, adding that similar works will be carried out to the damage on the other side of the road.

“The damage will be replaced, and a good job will be done,” Mr Mangan said.

Cllr Cahill said the road needs to be prioritised for further improvements.

“We should endeavour to secure funding,” he said, “to make sure a good job is done on this road.”

“As it stands we have to reinstate the trench address the defects that have occurred because of bursts... Then we need to consider sections of the road, possibly for surface dressing restoration maintenance in 2020,” said Padraig Teahan of Kerry County Council.