New bridge being built on closed Offaly road but others could collapse

A COLLAPSED bridge on a busy road in north Offaly may not be replaced until late October at the earliest, it emerged this week.

The collapse of the bridge over the Yellow river near Rhode has necessitated the closure of the R400, the road which connects the Offaly village with Rochfortbridge and is the direct route to the Dublin-Galway motorway.

It was also confirmed this week that similar bridges on the same road are also at risk of collapse and the quality of the diversion routes is deteriorating from overuse.

An engineer with Offaly County Council, Enda Daly, said on Wednesday that the new precast culvert sections for the bridge were being manufactured off site and were due for completion by September 30.

But Mr Daly added: “We did encounter other issues when we stripped back the existing structure.”

He said it had been anticipated that the original abutments at the bridge might be suitable but when the whole structure was taken down and the site investigated “they were deemed to be structurally inadequate”.

This mean that further site investigation had to be carried out and a new foundation has to be built.

The council is currently finalising tender documents for the new foundations and the engineer said a contractor will be appointed late this month, with a completion date “hopefully” of late October.

“That date is subject to weather conditions, the water levels of the Yellow river remaining low and contractor availability.”

Cllr Liam Quinn expressed concern about the completion of the project, especially with the dark evenings approaching.

With the road closed, an “official” diversion route through Croghan and Tyrrellspass was being recommended but local people were also driving by Knockdrin and Garr.

When it starts getting dark by 4.30pm, said the Fine Gael councillor “those little by roads that are carrying all that traffic they just get an awful lot worse.”

Cllr Quinn said funds will have to be allocated to repair those roads next year, because, like the R400, they were built on peat.

“They're bog road themselves and they're carrying a couple of thousand vehicles a day that they were never designed to carry.”

He added: “That stone bridge that collapsed is one of two stone bridges on that road and I would ask that we look at the second one.”

Mr Daly told the councillor that various stakeholders, such as Waterways Ireland, Inland Fisheries and the OPW had to be “kept in the loop” during the bridge replacement project.

“It's unfortunate that these things do take time. It's very much our main priority at the moment to get the road back open as soon as possible. We are pushing as much as we can to do that.”

The engineer added: “In relation to the other bridges on the R400 it was a concern to us that if this one has collapsed what's the potential for the rest of them.”

The council has examined two of them and found that one had “significant” work done on it 20 years ago.