Potholes eat up quarter of roads allocation
THE bad weather of late last year and early this year has resulted in a quarter of the council's annual local roads funding going on road repairs.
Of the €8.1 million allocated to local roads in the county, €2.7 million will now be spent on repairing the county's roads, which have fallen into disrepair.
Senior Engineer with the Roads section of Offaly County Council Charlie McCarthy said while all major projects would go ahead, a number of smaller projects will now be put back.
"In the past we would have carried out long overlays of about one and a half kilometres, this will now be reduced to shorter lengths of a few 11 metres. The allocations will be spread out differently now. More money will be put into road repairs," said Mr McCarthy.
Under the programme Offaly County Council was allocated n8,496,699, Birr Town Council, n195,000 and Tullamore Town Council, n195,000.
Projects which remain unaffected and will go ahead include Phase 2 and Phase 4 of the new link road in Banagher (n325,000) and the Cloneygowan bypass n100,000).
Also safe are Specific Improvement Grants totalling n175,000 which have been allocated for bridges at Cloncreen, Clonkeen, Borniess. Derryad, Derrygolan, Mullaghmahery, Killou-ghey, Moneyguyneen, Polduff, Drumbane, Kilcolgan, Blackwater and Ballynacarrig.
n30,000 has been allocated under low cost safety improvement grants at both Ballyfore crossroads and Rhode bridge, n50,00 for the Hill road in Banagher, n55,000 in Shinrone, n15,000 for Enaghan in Walsh Island, €n10,000 for works at Toberleheen, and n5000 each for Five roads and the Derries, Edenderry.
Meanwhile work on footpaths in Edenderry will also be carried out. These include foothpaths in Francis Street (n13,333), Francis Street/Gilroy Avenue (n20,000), Blundell Wood (n20,000), Carrick road (n26,667), Dublin Road (n26,667) and JKL Street (n37,333).
The AA said in a poll of 3,000 motorists 85% of them had hit a pothole in the previous month. Spokesman Conor Faughnan said that unrepaired roads would pose a danger to motorists.
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Weather for Tullamore
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 13 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
