Feakle roads included in three-year plan

A SENIOR engineer in Clare County Council has confirmed that plans to carry out a full overlay of the roads affected by sewerage works in Feakle have been included in a three-year plan under the road works programme.

The confirmation comes following a motion raised at a recent Killaloe Electoral Area meeting where councillors were concerned that road works planned for Feakle following the successful completion of the sewerage scheme would not include a full overlay of the road.
At the meeting, Councillor Hayes made reference to full resurfacing works carried out in neighbouring Tuamgraney and Scariff following the completion of sewerage works there and he looked for a similar overlay finish for Feakle so it did not become the “poor relation”.
Senior executive engineer, Seán Lenihan, who was not at the meeting, outlined in a formal reply that under the capital scheme funding was provided to carry out the reinstatement and permanent restoration of the trench created by the sewerage works. However, he has since clarified that it is the council’s intention to carry out a full overlay of the road but that funding to meet the additional costs involved with these works needed to be provided under the roads programme.
“A number of house connections had yet to be done so there was no point in carrying out works until that was carried out. The road restoration under the capital scheme only refers to the trench and overlaying is not included in the capital scheme. It is our intention under the roads programme to provide for an overlay of the whole road and it is in our three-year plan. We only got the allocation of our roads grant for the county recently which will have to be apportioned out among the electoral areas so that will determine what will happen with the works in Feakle,” Mr Lenihan explained.
The road grant allocations are due before the March meeting of Clare County Council and Mr Lenihan said he was not in a position to confirm when works might be carried out in Feakle until the allocations had been formalised.