Funding for rural roads and laneways in Sligo and Leitrim

MORE than two million Euro has been announced for improvements to non-public rural roads and laneways by the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys TD.

It’s part of a record funding allocation of €40 million for repairs and improvement works on non-public rural roads and laneways under the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS).

“The LIS scheme is one of the most sought-after grants by people living in rural Ireland not least in my own constituency”, Frank Feighan TD stated.

“Sligo Co Council have a huge demand from applicants and that local authority received €1,172,667 for this year.

“I want to thank Minister Humphreys who has generously allocated funding for the LIS scheme over the last few years, the only department to contribute directly to the LIS scheme, I want to thank her for listening to my calls for increased funding to ensure we deal with the strong demand from rural dwellers to avail of the scheme”, Deputy Feighan stated.

This announcement brings to a total of almost €170 million that has been allocated to local authorities under the Scheme since it was re-introduced in 2017. The allocation of funds is for works to be carried out across 2024 and 2025 on roads not normally maintained by the local authorities.

Minister Heather Humphreys said she was aware that Local Authorities need to carry out LIS works when weather conditions are favourable.

In recognition of this and in order to help local authorities better plan their work programmes, she said she was providing greater flexibility so that Local Authorities can use their allocation throughout 2024 and 2025.