Major Offaly road to close for two days this week with long diversion in place

A busy road in Offaly will close for two days this week with a long diversion set to be in place.

The R402 is the main road out of Edenderry and a stretch leading out of the town will close for works on Tuesday and Wednesday. The closure, which is expected to cause major traffic issues in the town, will come into force on March 18 for two days with the road re-opening at 6pm on March 19. 

The road is busy with commuters and school traffic and school bus operators and emergency services are among those sent specific notice of the closure.

Two diversions will be in place; one for cars and ordinary traffic via Kishawanny Lower, Ballygibbon East and Carrick (L-5019), and the other for heavy goods vehicles via Broadford, Clonard and Kinnegad (R402, L-1005/ 1002, R418, R401).

A full map of the detours is included below.

Traffic marshalls will be in place to warn of the closures which will effect other parts of the town with the new inner relief road facilitating the diversions. 

Fine Gael councillor Noel Cribbin has said: "All those serious pot holes on the Dublin Road are being repaired, the road has to be ripped up and re-laid, avoid if at all possible." The council says the closure is for "road reconstruction works."

A map of the works supplied to the Offaly Express shows that diversions will start in the centre of the town at the old Bank of Ireland roundabout. 

The area engineer explains this is to avoid an excessive build-up of traffic at the works site which will begin between the Lidl junction and Boyne Meadows. 

"While the works are shown up to the Bank of Ireland, this is to ensure that traffic are made aware to divert at Bank of Ireland towards Carrick so as to not travel all the way down as far as Boyne Meadows and then be turned back," a statement from Edenderry Municipal District explained.

"This is especially important for HGV traffic for obvious reasons. Local access will be able to travel down as far of the works area from both approaches. If the traffic management plan does not extend up as far as Bank of Ireland, we will have a lot of traffic travelling down towards Boyne Meadows only to have to travel back up to Bank of Ireland to access the detour route."