No guarantee of NRA funds for ‘ugly mile’

THE National Roads Authority (NRA) have said they cannot guarantee funds will be available for safety works on a stretch of road dubbed “the ugly mile” this week after the latest in a spate of incidents there.

 

The N85 Ennis to Lahinch Road is one of the county’s busiest routes. On Sunday, a two-car collision on the road near Kilnamona Cross resulted in four people being injured.

Units of Ennis Fire Brigade, along with ambulances from Ennis and Ennistymon, were called to the scene while the road was closed by gardaí.

The incident led to renewed calls by Ennis West Councillor James Breen for action to be taken by Clare County Council and the NRA to improve safety on the road near Kilnamona Cross. Councillor Breen estimates that 13 cars have left the road in the area in recent months.

“We’re lucky that someone hasn’t been killed there. I call it the ugly mile. I am calling for appropriate signs to be put in place there. Funding needs to be put in place to improve safety on that stretch of road and it needs to be done before it’s too late and someone loses their life,” he said.

However, Tom Tiernan, senior engineer with Clare County Council, has stated while the local authority is aware of the need for improvements, funding from the NRA is required.

“Both the county council and NRA are aware of the situation in that area. There are a few critical bends that do need attention. We have made our case to the NRA and they are supportive of this concept but the problem is, the same as in relation to most other things, the funding just simply isn’t there. The NRA have had a very poor allocation this year,” he said.

He added that the council have engaged a consultant, who has begun design work and once this is complete, the local authority will be “enhancing our efforts to try and secure funding”.

Mr Tiernan continued, “I would be hoping that the NRA would have more money to play with next year and that Kilnamona will be in a slightly better position than it is this year. Whether it will achieve funding or not I don’t know but the NRA sympathise with the position and are supportive of improving the alignment in that area.”

He concluded, “The funding simply isn’t in existence at the moment to move it into a construction phase and we are still very much in planning and design at the moment”.

A spokesman for the NRA told The Clare Champion it would be “difficult” to guarantee funding for this stretch of road.

“We work directly with our colleagues within the local county council and we would agree that there are a significant amount of historical national secondary routes that are substandard and need improvement/upgrade works around the country,” the spokesman stated.

“Unfortunately, we are dealing with very limited funding from Government and just to put the funding deficit into perspective, year-on-year our funding for standard maintenance works and on-going rehabilitation work has been cut by 50%. Additionally, funding for major schemes from our peak spend a few years ago is down 85%.

“Therefore, it is difficult to offer any guarantees on funding for the N85 and with any funding made available, the focus will be on maintenance,” he said.