Mallow’s €18m relief road on hold

THE proposed €18 million northern relief road for Mallow has been put on hold, it emerged yesterday.

Cork Co Council is to seek an urgent meeting with the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the NRA and Minister for Transport Martin Cullen over the fact that funding has not been allocated for the scheme.

Government funding has also not been made available for a €2.9 million resurfacing project between Innishannon and Bandon.

Angry councillors questioned why the Mallow project was not on the NRA’s latest priority list, especially when the Government decided to designate it a “hub town” under the National Spatial Strategy.

County engineer Ned Flynn told councillors that Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) for the project had been confirmed and he was in a position to go to tender, but the NRA had not given the council permission to proceed.

Cllr Frank O’Flynn (FF) called on colleagues to support his motion to seek an urgent meeting with the NRA.

“Mallow is grinding to a halt. It is supposed to have a hub town status but you’d wonder about that when the allocations come out,” Mr O’Flynn said.

Meanwhile, Cllr Sean Sherlock (Lab) said that the relief road was vital to the town’s future development: “If this is not expedited in a reasonable timeframe it will hinder future growth of the town. We’re in the process of putting together a Special Local Area Plan (SLAP) for Mallow and that can’t happen properly without this piece of infrastructure.”

Cllr Noel O’Connor said there was no point in meeting the NRA because they did not have the money.

“It’s the Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, we should be meeting. The NRA say it will be 2010 before they can consider this (financing) again,” the Fine Gael councillor said.

His party colleague Cllr Liam O’Doherty claimed that councillors were “being hoodwinked” by the Government and NRA.

“We’ll probably get an announcement before the general election that the two local (FF) TDs have secured the money,” he said.

The county engineer said he was “disappointed” that funding wasn’t made available for major resurfacing between Bandon and Innishannon (N71).

Cllr Paddy Sheehan (FG) said that hardly any grants had come for roads in the West Cork area.

He claimed that Deputy Jackie Healy-Rae (FF) had so much clout with the Government that he had been able to create an “autobahn” from Kenmare to the Glengarriff tunnel whereas, on the Cork side, it was a “goat track”.