The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Photo for the ‘ah boys’ category
THIS is a photograph which surely belongs in the ‘Ah Boys’ category for its apparent lack of consultation and planning.
The raft of recent work on College Road here in Castleisland is a credit to those who carried it out not to mention the relief to those who waited for it to be done.
A campaign to rid College Road of rusty old water supply pipes from the old library to Kilbanivane got underway in the run up to last May’s local elections.
It is true that the coming on stream of the Windmill Nursing Home put the skids under the planning and execution of the 2019 summer-long project.
The fact that election hopeful, Charlie Farrelly dug his heels in - as one of the planks of his subsequently successful Kerry County Council campaign – did progress there any harm either.
The work eventually got under way with periods of disruption to local traffic last June.
The new pipes were all installed, the trenches backfilled and there was the further rehabilitation work such as re-tarmacing and making good the line of the trenches and the vital road markings on such a busy, three-school road.
The trenching, piping, back-filling and repairing were all done to perfection - and the road markings crew moved in, did their job and left a delightful gallery of work of white and yellow on black along the road.
On the Kilbanivane side of the boys national school, the usual ‘Caution’ ‘Slow’ and ‘School Ahead’ road signage was laid by the crew and it all looked like ‘The End’ stamp could be applied.
Then the tarmac team moved in again. They had to – as there was a little more settling of the back-filling along the line of the trench.
But they applied their shade of darkness to the scene and rendered the ‘school warning’ road markings illegible and useless from north of the boys national school.
And now it will have to be done all over again. Ah Boys!