Major road works planned to start
UPGRADES TO OUR ROAD NETWORK WILL SEE MILLIONS SPENT IN SLIGO
SLIGO is poised to see a very busy year of road works in 2018 with over ¤22 million alone to be spent on maintaining our existing roads and over ¤100 million spent on new roads by Central Government.
Major projects include the N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin upgrade, Cashel Gates outside Tubbercurry, the N4/N15 Sligo Urban Improvement Scheme and the management of Invasive Alien Plant Species on our roads, such as Japanese Knotweed.
All site works on the N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin are scheduled to finish by the end of the year. The tender process started two weeks ago. Director of Services Tom Kilfeather said: “Hopefully we’ ll be talking about that contract being signed this time next year with work starting early 2019.”
Mr Kilfeather told members that the Cashel Gates Scheme would finish in 2018 while the N4/N15 Urban Improvement Scheme at Shannoneighter would go to tender next year.
Another road project is the Eastern Garavogue Scheme which the Council is thinking of breaking up into smaller schemes such as the southern section from Cranmore Road to Cleveragh costing an estimated ¤22 million.
Mr Kilfeather said they could apply for funding for that part at least as it was “shovel ready.”
The Council is nearly in a position to go to tender on the Western Distributor Road linking Caltragh to Maugheraboy.
As for the O’Connell Street Enhancement scheme, the Council is having one-to-one meetings with traders this month and going to tender before the end of 2017.
All councillors welcomed the progress made on the road projects, with Cllr Hubert Keaney saying their construction should bring 300-350 local jobs to Sligo. Cllr Mi- chael Clarke said he was disappointed there was no re-alignment of the N59 at Bunbeg as it was “most dangerous for lorries.”
Cllr Dara Mulvey welcomed the extra funding allocated to tackling invasive species and asked if there was any more funding for local roads.
Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady said it was important a time frame would be put on the O’Connell Street Enhancement project and thanked traders for their patience.
Cllr Lundy welcomed the works to be done at Cashel Gates while Cllr Margaret Gormley condemned the lack of funding for Class 3 local roads. Cllr Paul Taylor said people “genuinely cannot understand how the roads are not better” in the county.