This article is from page 8 of the 2013-03-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
RURAL roads in Clare are in danger of being littered with potholes in what will be the biggest crisis to affect the network around the county in over 30 years, Clare County Council has been warned this week.
A cash-crisis with rural roads has been sounded out following the revelation that the 2013 roadworks programme for the county has been slashed by 42.4 per cent over the past five years.
County Engineer Tom Tiernan outlined the scale of the roads budget reduction across a host of areas in the Roadworks Programme 2013 secured by The Clare People. In the report he has issued a stark warning that “the resources being made available to facilitate maintenance and restoration are falling significantly short of what is required to sustain the county’s network”.
For 2013, € 17.9m has been allocated for road infrastructure in the county – a drop of over € 13m from the figure of € 31.1m in 2008. The biggest decreases are set to be felt in rural roads: down 36.8 percent for restoration improvement; down 40 per cent in the Surface Dressing Programme; down 72 per cent for Specific Improvement Schemes and Overlay Projects down 69.1 per cent.
These figures, which were laid before the monthly meeting of Clare County Council on Friday, has led a number of councillors to voice their concerns about the county’s road network.
“Rural roads are in a horrendous state and roads in the county are crumbling away,” claimed Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF) as he blasted the decision to spend € 1.3m of the council’s resources on the Limerick North Distributor Road, a project he said “that is very fictional and is pie in the sky and one that isn’t happening”.
“The alarm bells are out there – there has to be a readjustment of thinking within this council in relation to investment in county road structures going forward. People in rural Clare deserve a service and their road network has to be protected for many reasons,” said former Mayor of Clare, Cllr Christy Curtin (Ind)
“As far as I’m concerned, for us in rural areas, roads are back on the agenda. In my tenure (since 1979) on the council I’ve never had as many complaints about potholes. As far as I’m concerned we have to address it, we haven’t the manpower at present to do that,” he added.
A decision on whether to adopt the roadworks programme has been deferred until the April meeting of the council.