Wexford People

CRACKING UP OVER THE ‘MOST DUG-UP STREET IN WEXFORD’

- By MARIA PEPPER

IS THIS the most dug up street in Wexford? After countless episodes of road, water, gas and broadband works, the residents of Maudlintow­n certainly think so and they are being supported by Cllr. Ger Carthy who says the street is now so uneven ‘you’d need an army tank to drive through it’. The section of main road between Maudlintow­n and Rocklands has had its fair share of street digging for water services and broadband over the past four years but since last June, it has been dug up and reinstated so many times for Gas Networks, Irish Water and fibre optic work that people are losing count.

‘We are sick of it. It’s a nightmare. We’ll be in the Guiness Book of Records next,’ said Magdalen’s Terrace resident Tony Malone as he reacted to the latest disruption which began over a fortnight ago and has led to constant tailbacks outside residents’ front doors due to a manual stop n’ go system.

‘You can’t cross the road. The windows are dirty. There’s constant noise and vibration. The footpaths are filthy and you’re dragging dirt into the house. You’re waking up in the morning to road-cutting saws and JCB’s and coming home in the evening to the same thing. The road has been like a war zone since last June’, he said.

‘If someone wants to get connected to the gas network they have to dig it all up again. There are so many bumps in the road now that a neighbour said to me that we have 17 “sleeping policemen”,’ said Tony.

‘We’ve suffered major disruption but there is no compensati­on, they don’t even clean the footpaths. We don’t get updates on what is happening and we haven’t been given a finishing date’.

Cllr. Carthy said he raised the issue at a recent Council meeting and was told that the people of Maudlintow­n and Rocklands will have to endure sporadic street digging for at least the next year as gas network connection­s are installed and there will be no hope of the permanent reinstatem­ent of road and footpaths until then.

‘In fairness, people in the area are cracking up with the situation’, said the Independen­t councillor who called on the local authority to ensure that when a road is dug up that all services are installed at the same time and a re-instatemen­t then carried out.

‘Why don’t they do it in a co-ordinated way and put in spurs for easy access.’

Cllr. Carthy asked what financial bond the Council secured for road and footpath repairs and was informed that it had received €500,000 for a road-opening licence but he said this will not be enough to reinstate the damage caused throughout the town.

 ??  ?? No end in sight: digging to continue for at least the next year.
No end in sight: digging to continue for at least the next year.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Ireland