This article is from page 29 of the 2009-04-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 29 JPG
POTHOLES and bad roads are set to dominate local authority meetings in Ennis for years to come, a meeting has heard.
Senior executive engineer with En- nis Town Council, Eamon O’Dea told last week’s meeting of council- lors in the Ennis electoral area that the council has been forced to re- evaluate its roadworks programme for 2009 in the face of dwindling resources.
Mr O’Dea said funding cutbacks would lead to a major drop in the level of re-surfacing and repair work
on roads in Ennis.
Last week’s announcement of a €5.7 million cut in Clare’s local roads allocation was strongly criti- cized.
Mr O’Dea told councillors that the council was in the process of identi- fying the roads in most need of re- ene
Resources, said Mr O’Dea, would be very limited in 2009 but that the council will take a ‘structured’ approach to the roadwork’s pro- eramme.
“We don’t know what allocation we are going to get. Essentially we can’t escape the fact that the resources
aren’t available,’ said Mr O’Dea.
Cllr Peter Considine (FF) said the council could maximise resources by allocating work crews to tar “short stretches of road”’.
Mr O’Dea said road tarring would form the main element of the coun- cil’s repair programme. However he warned that the council would have to carefully balance day to day re- pairs with larger, one-off projects.
“We will do that (tarring) but we also have to put resources in place to deal with bigger repair jobs. For in- stance, where do we get resources for roads that get into trouble because of sever weather conditions? It’s a bit of
catch 22 situation,” he said.
Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) said the issue of bad roads couldn’t be Tea LO) Keree
“We have to deal with this. Other- wise we’ll have motions coming in here for the next three years on pot- holes,” he said.
Cllr Brennan admitted that budget cuts meant it was unlikely that all road problems could be addressed.
Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) asked if funding from the CLAR programme was available for roads in Ennis.
Mr O’Dea said the CLAR pro- gramme was not applicable to En- ah