Plans For Carrigaline Relief Road Gathers Momentum
Writes Ciaran Dineen
Plans for the-long awaited Carrigaline ‘Western Relief Road’ have seen some new progress updates over the past week. On Monday 23rd July a County Council Meeting took place where a number of developments were discussed, with Carrigaline’s Western Relief Road featuring as a priority. To date, The Carrigdhoun Newspaper now understands that subject to a successful allocation of government funds under the Urban Regeneration and Development Project, construction of the road could take place as early as 2019.
This comes as welcome news to the community of Carrigaline, along with its political representatives, who were told just two months ago in April by Transport Minister Shane Ross that development of the road in question was unlikely to occur until 2021. However, following a meeting with local Councillor Séamus McGrath and a team of other delegates in June of this year, a positive step in terms of progress seems to have been made. According to Cllr McGrath, Cork County Council is very much in favour of the construction of such a relief road in Carrigaline and that it is to be commenced as quickly as possible. McGrath told The Carrighoun Newspaper following the meeting on Monday afternoon that; “the development of a relief road in Carrigaline was welcomed into the programme at today’s County Council meeting. Through the work that local representatives have put into the backing of such a road we have subsequently made it a number one priority for the Council and have made it clear that it is an urgent piece of development.”
In the last week or so, pressure has been put on the County Council to deliver a strong message to Dublin that Carrigaline is currently facing unprecedented levels of traffic. A report into traffic in the area was recently released, showing that there has been between a 150% – 160% increase in traffic since 2006. As far as can be understood, these revelations do however not include predicted increases in traffic levels as a result of the new set of schools which are set to be open in 2019 or 2020, on the Ballinrea Road. As a result of all of this, there has never been a more urgent time to sign, seal and deliver on the promises of the relief road.
According to Cllr McGrath, a further meeting is to be held in September where an application for funding will be launched by the County Council. In order for the progress of the road to be hastened, specific governmental funds are required to kick start the development. Cllr McGrath is cautiously optimistic that such funding will be granted but he stresses, “the important thing now is that it’s top of the list and it’s on the programme. There is no hiding, this isn’t going to go away as the Council have agreed that it is a matter of urgency.”
Any further updates on the relief road will be immediately reported by The Carrigdhoun Newspaper as soon as it is made available.
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