Tourism marketing success taking toll on west Clare roads

SEVERAL roads on the Wild Atlantic Way are “not fit for purpose” due to the increasing number of coach tours and vehicles using these routes, a local councillor has claimed.

In light of the success of the Wild Atlantic Way and in particular the ever-increasing popularity of the route along the West Coast of Clare, improvement funding has been sought.

Councillor Joe Garrihy has called on The West Clare MD to write to Fáilte Ireland, and the ministers for Tourism and Transport to seek appropriate ring-fenced and increased allocation of funding to upgrade, maintain and bring to appropriate standard the road surface, markings, lay-bys and roadside boundaries along this route.

“The international marketing and resulting increased traffic along with ever increasing numbers of large coach tours on this route is bringing a usage and scale of wear and tear at a level, which requires ring-fenced funding over and above the standard roads allocation to ensure a quality product and experience for both visitor and local community is sustainable and resourced in line with its importance to the county and country,” he said.

“I am aware that Minister Heather Humphreys is looking for the Department of Transport to look at providing funding for our Local Improvement Schemes (LIS) to deal with the backlog.

“I believe the West Coast of Clare is one of our high profile gems that Fáilte Ireland and our tourism industry markets to bring people to Ireland and Clare. On the back of that there is a price to pay.

“At the moment we are paying a price in our roads section because it is clearly underfunded. I believe there is a role for Fáilte Ireland and our own tourism department to provide funding to deal with these issues.

“We have a lot of issues about locals being discommoded during the holiday period by large buses going on roads.

“I was up in Gleninagh, Ballyvaughan, and you could meet seven or eight buses up there today. We are getting hammered because of the condition of these roads.

“The deterioration of these roads is being added to by our successful marketing bringing people to Clare. That is what we want and it is great for our economy.

“This is about everyone who is benefitting coming to the table to deal with the challenges arising out of our marketing success.

“The welcome influx of visitors to West Clare is providing a load on our very stretched resources and road crews. It is reasonable and logical that a tourism budget be found to ensure that this success continues.

“We are in danger of undermining the quality of tourists’ experience and that will involve having a decent road network maintained in line with the usage it gets,” he said.

While visitors are very welcome in Clare, Councillor Joe Killeen said other agencies needed to step in to provide funding for road improvements in the West Clare MD.

Acknowledging roads in areas like Fanore, Kilfenora and Kilnaboy were subject to large volumes of traffic, Councillor Killeen stressed it is important that when these issues are being addressed they result in improvements instead of making it worse.

West Clare MD senior executive officer, Siobhán McNulty outlined funding for the upgrade and maintenance of roads is provided in the form of grant funding from the Department of Transport as a primary funding source.

Funding and planned expenditure is as set out in the Schedule of Municipal District Works (SMDW) Programme which is brought before Council for agreement.

The 2023 SMDW is currently being drafted and the council are advised that funding is likely to be at a similar level to that provided in 2022.

“Currently there is no mechanism to seek ring-fenced funding for particular routes based on their inclusion or not in the Wild Atlantic Way.

“Fáilte Ireland do not fund road improvement/maintenance, but the council are working with Fáilte Ireland on a report on the Wild Atlantic Way Infrastructure Improvement.

“The aim of the project is to identify and seek to address the issues on the route and this project work is ongoing.

“The council continue to work within available resources to ensure the road network is in its optimum condition.

“However, the challenges of the recent severe weather events cannot be understated,” she stated.