Roads improvements and public lighting on Waterford council’s plan

Waterford City and County Council are ‘committed’ to carrying out improvement works on the N72 Lismore to Tallow road, the council heard at last week’s Plenary meeting.

The 2021 Annual Service Plan for Waterford City and County Council outlines continued service improvement works for the N72 Lismore to Tallow road.

While works on this road commenced in 2020, further works are committed to being undertaken by the council, according to the roads and transportation section of the annual service plan.

Also included in this plan are improvement works on the N25 at Burgery, on the

N72, Junction 6 in Ballyrafter and Phase 2 of works on the N72 at Kealroe.

Cllr Conor D McGuinness welcomed news of the works, noting that for years now, the road surface at these locations has been in ‘dire need’ of improvement.

“I have received frequent calls and messages from constituents about their condition. I am glad that these works will now go ahead. I have asked that the Council ensure regular and accurate communication so that road-users have plenty of notice of delays and diversions,” he said.

Director of Services for Roads, Water and Enviornment, Fergus Galvin spoke to the council regarding the N72 and N25 works due to be carried out.

“We are committed to doing those works in the current year and we have grant allocations from the TII which will allow us to progress those,” he said.

LIGHTING

Under the plan, Cllr McGuinness raised the topic of public lighting, highlighting the particular interest in the Dungarvan Lismore District.

The topic of public lighting contracts and issues with maintenance were hotly contested at the Dungarvan Lismore District meetings during winter months, with reports of multiple lighting outages being reported by councillors, particularly in Dungarvan town.

Past meetings of the Dungarvan Lismore District heard how parts of the town and some surrounding areas were left in ‘ total darkness’ in the run-up to Christmas of 2020 due to issues with public lighting.

Cllr McGuinness highlighted the council’s commitment to meeting the ‘highest possible standard through maintenance of the public lighting contract,’ as outlined in the annual service plan.

“I think that is an objective that certainly councillors in the Dungarvan Lismore district will be keeping an eye on and tracking over the coming months.

“It has been a frequent item at our district meetings. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice to say that will be one we will be keeping a watch on,” Cllr McGuinness said.

Key actions outlined in the annual service plan note that the Public Lighting Maintenance contract has been tendered and is due to be reviewed and awarded by the end of February.

Addressing the council, Director Fergus Galvin said that the council expect to have tenders ‘ in the next month or so’ and to appoint a new public lighting contractor ‘towards April of this year’.

While Mr Galvin said that he didn’t wish to ‘ get into a detailed discussion’ on the topic of the public lighting contract, he added: “We are relatively happy with the performance of the current contractor.”

Following the meeting, Cllr McGuinness noted that council management has ‘amended some the key performance indicators (KPIs) and terms in the contract in an effort to reach the highest standards of service’ and thanked the council for listening to feedback over the past couple of months.