‘Significant setback’ as minister says no money available for Mallow bypass
Cork county councillors criticised the minister’s decisions, while their chief executive, Tim Lucey, described the news as “a significant setback”.
However, councillors have been given an opportunity to put their case for the roads to the minister on April 29 and are anxious to show him the economic necessity for the bypass in particular.
The council is appointing consultants to draw up a socio-economic case for the construction of the bypass and is paying for the report along with some business interests in Mallow.
Cllr Frank O’Flynn (FF) said the axing of the EU milk quotas was a huge boost for Dairygold, which had recently invested multi-millions of euro in modernising milk production in its plants in Mallow and Mitchelstown.
He said increased milk production would lead to 30,000 extra milk tanker movements around Mallow every year and it was imperative that a northern relief road be built to ensure traffic didn’t grind to a halt.
“It’s the most disappointing news we’ve got since I became a councillor in 1999. The road (bypass) would be a major economic driver for North Cork. The motorway should also have been allowed to go to planning, €20m of taxpayers’ money has already been spent on that,” Cllr O’Flynn said.
“We must call on the minister to look at this again. If this relief road was nearer to Dublin it would probably be built by now,” he added.
Cllr John Paul O’Shea (Ind) said he was also “extremely disappointed” with the news. “The M20 is a longer-term project costing €800m. In the meantime we need to progress the northern relief road, which will cost up to €16m. We have huge traffic congestion in Mallow and this will become worse when we have more tankers coming into the town,” he said.
A bottleneck already exists in the Spa Glen area because all vehicles coming into the town from the main roads from Fermoy and Mitchelstown end up being channeled through there,
“We have to have our case ready for the minister. Business people need to see this happen. We must impress the real need for it on him,” Cllr Noel McCarthy (Lab) said.
The Mayor of County Cork, Cllr Alan Coleman, agreed it was vitally important for the economic good of North Cork and the whole Cork region that the bypass be built.
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