No funding for road, despite councillor’s fears

Funding is unlikely to be made available for the widening or realignment of a North Clare road, which one local representative believes will be the scene of a serious accident, it emerged recently.

Councillor Joe Arkins asked Clare County Council’s senior engineer, in the roads and transport department, to include a proposal for upgrading the R476 from Toonagh stores to Ryan’s Quarry in the upcoming roads programme.

However, Mr Tom Tiernan, in a written response, stated that the council does not expect the road to be upgraded, because of a lack of money.

“This section of road is narrow when compared with other sections along the route and it would benefit from realignment at its Northern end. However, in the current economic climate, it is most unlikely that funding would be made available from any source in the foreseeable future to facilitate either widening or realignment.

“The most recent condition survey of the Regional Route Network indicates there are no significant deficiencies from a structural point of view and so it isn’t included in the four-year Road Improvement programme recently submitted to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. It has been identified as an area within which skid resistance is deficient and so it would benefit from surface dressing – it will therefore be considered in this context.

“Unfortunately the overall proportion of the network, which needs surface dressing, is significantly greater than what can be funded right now. The non-national road grants announced within the past few days show a reduction of 15% for surface dressing when compared with last year. Details of this year’s works will be set out in the 2013 Roadwork’s Programme that will be outlined at the March Council meeting,” Mr Tiernan concluded.

Councillor Arkins told a local area meeting that “there hasn’t been a serious accident at this point and hopefully there won’t be.”

Councillor Michael Kelly agreed with the Ruan man that the road was problematic and should be improved but if the funding wasn’t available for this he requested “signage to put up to warn people”.