Where roads have no names

THREE Clare County Councillors this week proposed the council initiate a scheme in which it would co-operate in providing finger signs to name local roads.
Councillor PJ Kelly, Bill Chambers and Tom McNamara all gave their backing to the proposal.
Introducing it, Councillor Kelly said putting numbers on roads without place name signs was “just bizarre” and he said people were being confused.
He said not allowing villages on secondary roads to have signs amounted to “discrimination”, while he claimed people visiting Ireland “love the musical names”.The Lissycasey man said the NRA were not being asked to pay for the works but the motion only wanted the council to provide assistance to communities.
Councillor McNamara said what was being proposed was local community would work with the local authority to ensure areas can be identified easily. He was critical of the NRA. “The NRA is dictating what we should and shouldn’t do and we can’t promote tourism in beauty spots.”
However, Green Party Councillor Brian Meaney said he fundamentally disagreed with the motion. He said it was very important clear addresses can be provided to emergency services and obscure townland names mean nothing to someone who takes a call to the emergency services at a centralised location.
While Councillor Joe Cooney said there was no money available for putting up signs, Councillor PJ Kelly said all that was being sought was co-operation and community groups had said they would pay for the signs themselves if the council allowed them to be erected.
At the meeting, director of services, Nora Kaye, agreed the matter be referred to the relevant strategic policy committee for consultation.
However, in a written reply to the meeting, she had stated, “I would not be in favour of such a scheme in relation to national or regional roads, where regulated signage schemes have either been implemented or are in the course of planning. Implementation is completed on most national roads at this stage while on regional roads very little remains to be done, in this regard.
“Under these schemes, local roads are identified by their road number. While it is accepted identification of roads by ‘road number’ in such a public way represents a significant culture change, there is no question such an approach does facilitate unique identification of each road and members of the general public are using this system more and more in a practical way as they get used to it.
“It may be worth considering a scheme such as suggested in the notice of motion for implementation on local roads away from the national and regional route network. At present, a signage policy is being drafted for consideration by the SPC and signage such as suggested will be considered before the draft is finalised and will accordingly be addressed in the document.”