This article is from page 6 of the 2008-06-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
CLARE County Council are to paint two listed buildings in Ennistymon bright white with luminous yel- low stripes in an effort to curb the amount of accidents taking place at the location.
Blake’s corner has become infa- mous in recent years as an accident blackspot, with local residents claim- ing that an accident takes place there at least once a week.
The local authority is in the proc- ess of purchasing both Blake’s and neighbouring Linnane’s, located just before the bridge in Ennistymon.
They plan to knock both build- ing and reconstruct them a number of metres back from the road when funding becomes available but, in the meantime, they propose to paint the building luminous colours to make them clearly visible to motorists.
Both buildings are more than 100 years old, have been granted ‘listed’ or protected status by the Office of Public Works and appear on thou- sands of postcards.
The buildings, located three feet below street level, are classic ex- amples of the town’s old-fashioned shop fronts. Indeed, Blake’s earned national notoriety as Ireland’s small- est pub until it closed for business a decade ago.
‘There is a huge problem with cars crashing into those buildings. There are huge volumes of tourists com- ing through there on a daily basis
and they don’t know what is await- ing them when they turn the corner. I am very concerned that there will be a serious accident and that is why I have suggested that reflective paint 1s placed on the walls of the building to alert people that there is a dangerous Situation ahead,’ said Cllr Martin SOE aea CaF
‘This is just a temporary shot-gun measure while the process of moving the building is undertaken. That has
to go through a planning, consulta- tion and funding process. I am real- istic enough to realise that that will take a few years to happen.
“In the meantime, we need to see some progress being made. It’s a bal- ancing act between preserving what is traditional with road safety. In that situation, I will always come down on the side of road safety.”
Council engineer, Donnie Buckley confirmed last week that the local
authority had purchased one of the buildings involved and is at an ad- vanced stage in purchasing the other. The local authority is also to host a meeting in the coming weeks to at- tempt to get the building in question delisted, allowing construction work to take place.