This article is from page 36 of the 2007-04-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 36 JPG
THE council’s practice of leaving eravel margins on the side of roads Where they have acquired land for road improvements is providing an opportunity for illegal parking, a lo- cal councillor has claimed.
Cllr Joe Cooney told a meeting of Clare County Council last week that
the practice of leaving such land open gives carte blanche for illegal park- ing and in some cases, dumping.
“IT had asked that Clare County Council maintain and fence off all waste ground which the council ac- quired for road improvements on the sides of roads throughout the county. I’m not happy with the reply,” he Sr HKOe
In reply to his motion before the council, officials told Cllr Cooney that “in many cases, on relatively mi- nor road improvement schemes, ad- ditional land is acquired to make the road safer by just providing addition- al sight distance. In these situations it would not be appropriate to erect any fencing as this would interfere with the available sight distance. In other
cases the improved section can have CBN Arc Da rca eneeCcoOlMmrstseMmAeCoMB Koni UOLMmOerelI a lay-by remains.
‘There are a number of such lay-bys around the county and in many cases they have been treated to discourage unauthorised parking. Where prac- tical, in carrying out re-alignments nowadays we endeavour to return the by-passed section of road to agricul-
tural use.”
The officials added that if there were any specific locations where action 1S needed, these would be as- sessed on an individual basis.”
Cllr Pat Hayes said that the illegal parking of Travellers caravans in some areas 1s becoming a problem. ‘In one place there were 15 caravans parked along the side of the road.”