Row over choice of roads for resurfacing
THE roads from Tagoat to Our Lady’s Island and Ballymore to Mayglass mysteriously disappeared off a programme of Council maintenance works causing Independent councillor Ger Carthy and the Mayor Frank Staples to scratch their heads and wonder why.
‘ There was a three-year programme drawn up last year and €169,000 was to go to Our Lady’s Island road. Now I see that has been removed,’ said Cllr. Carthy as he perused a new list of re-surfacing projects compiled by the recently-appointed district engineer Sean Kavanagh.
‘I would like to ask about the condition rating of the road in Lady’s Island. You have money allocated for Coolcotts Lane which is a tertiary road. What exactly is going on.’ he demanded to know.‘Now there’s a new structure and it’s totally changed. Is the Council concentrating on urban roads at the expense of rural roads. I want to know the rating of the road in Lady’s island last year compared to this year because a hatchet job has been done.’
Labour councillor George Lawlor cheekily suggested the road was included last year because they thought the Pope was coming to Lady’s Island.
Chief Roads Engineer Noel O’Driscoll said if Cllr. Carthy looked at the list of rural and urban allocations for road maintenance the rural areas were ahead. He said the rating of Our Lady’s Island was better than any roads on the list.
Cllr. Lawlor pointed out that Coolcotts is an important area with a large population and one of the busiest primary schools in Wexford. He added that no-one objected when tens of thousands of Euro were spent on Broadway.
Cllr. Carthy said the money was promised to Our Lady’s island and added:’ but now it’s gone to Coolcotts Lane.’
Director of Services Tony Larkin intervened and said he wouldn’t like this to be cast as an urban versus rural divide.The road strengthening programme has to be done within the limits of the budget and the Council is doing its best and focussing on the worst roads.
‘You couldn’t call Coolcotts Lane a tertiary road. It is an important urban secondary road serving a large number of houses’, he pointed out to which Cllr. Carthy responded: ‘It’s down in the programme as a local tertiary’.
The Mayor Frank Staples said the Ballymore to Mayglass road was also removed from the programme. ‘It was promised it would be done. Now it has been taken off. I can’t understand why’.
Mr. O’Driscoll said the planned scheme of road strengthening works was a robust programme based on need.‘I couldn’t say there is any road that could be substituted for any of the roads on the list.’
‘If it was on the programme last year, it needed to be done,’ insisted the Mayor. Mr. O’Driscoll said the road ratings last year might not have been strictly based on condition.
Cllr. Lisa McDonald suggested that rather than fighting among themselves, they should write to the Minister and tell him the allocation is simply not enough. ‘We are all in this together.’
Mr. O’Driscoll said: ‘we are happy to get an increase this year but if we got another million on that it wouldn’t be enough.’
Mr. Hore said the condition rating of Our Lady’s Island road is 5-7 and a rating of 5-6 is considered reasonable..
He said the Council had achieved major improvements with a reduction in funding since 2008. ‘We are getting value for money. Give us more money and we will only do a better job.’