This article is from page 35 of the 2008-08-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 35 JPG
A KILRUSH area councillor has warned that more money will have to be allocated to hedge cutting in the west, if a major accident is to be avoided.
Concerned councillor Oliver Garry (FG) said a mere €40,000 had been allocated to cutting hedges on all re- gional and local roads in west Clare, which he estimates at 1,000 km.
Clare County Council carries out all of its heavy growth hedge cutting between the months of September and April. Verge cutting can take place year around.
This year the policy of the coun-
cil is to cut all the national and sec- ondary roads, junctions and long bends on regional roads, dangerous junctions on local county roads, ap- proaches to towns and villages and amenity locations.
Cllr Garry said that school routes were also once a priority.
‘There 1s no visibility around bends and people are inclined to keep to the centre of the road. It is a danger for pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and truck drivers,’ he said.
‘There is a huge risk of accidents or people being knocked down.
“You have a lot of people walk- ing for exercise in the evenings,’ he Sr nLOe
‘The council are forcing farmers to cut the hedges but they are only cut- ting them from the inside. On a three to four metre wide road you have a danger of hedges closing them in.
“We will have a major problem if more money is not put into this.”
He said the cost of cutting hedges is estimated at €180 per kilometre and argued that the allocated funds will run out soon.
“The problem is that the money is not there to cut all the hedges on ru- ral roads, unless it comes out of other road maintenance grants.”
There is a separate fund for nation- al roads and urban areas.
‘Rural people should be treated the
same as people living in urban areas and those living on national roads. We as rural people pay our taxes and as such get the same service,’ he said.
“Why can’t we have the same stand- ard in rural areas as in urban areas,” he said.
“T feel very strongly that there should be a more significant alloca- tion put aside for hedge cutting.”
The Fine Gael councillor said that just €200,000 is set aside to cut the hedges on rural and secondary roads throughout the county
“We need double that funding to give any form of decent standard of service to those roads.”