Traffic woes for Little Island

Cork County Council is to be urged to take urgent action to prevent one of the region’s industrial powerhouses grinding to a halt from traffic gridlock.

Huge queues of cars and lorries are a daily problem in Little Island, on the fringe of the city, where tens of thousands of workers are employed in nearly 1,000 businesses.

Inadequate road infrastructure along with insufficient footpaths, pedestrian crossings, and traffic lights have also led to a number of accidents.

Several major businesses have already expressed concern about the likelihood of further companies being attracted into the area, with an infrastructure already over-capacity.

The issue was highlighted by Little Island Business Association (LIBA). The matter is to be raised at a meeting of the Cobh/Glanmire Municipal District (which includes Little Island) on Tuesday next and, again, at a full county council meeting in County Hall on November 23.

Cllr Pádraig O’Sullivan (FF), who grew up in Little Island, said the local authority urgently needs to address the traffic chaos.

“The large number of residents and employees using the inadequate infrastructure daily have become increasingly frustrated at the lack of development in the road and pedestrian infrastructure in particular.

“There are over 1,000 businesses in the Little Island area and a significant residential population who come peak traffic times are stuck in endless queues of traffic going nowhere.

“This isn’t good enough for the near 2,000 residents who live on the island and given the highly industrialised nature of their surroundings one would expect a safe and efficient traffic management plan.”

He said he had been contacted by business owners and chief executives of some of the major companies urging him to lobby council engineers to get the situation resolved.

“At present Cork County Council is in the process of acquiring lands from landowners at the Island Cross where additional footpaths and a minor widening of the road will be undertaken and traffic lights will be installed.”

However, while welcoming the planned works, he suggested the developments would help regulate traffic but would not solve the daily gridlock and endless congestion.

The councillor recently posted videos on the traffic chaos on his Facebook page which have received thousands of views.

He said given the amount of rates and contributions paid by many businesses in the area over the years, the very least that employees and residents on the Island could expect is a safe and efficient road network.

Meanwhile, motorists can expect increasing delays from next Monday on the N20 between Mallow and Rathduff.

Cork Co Council is undertaking roadworks in the area and warns stop/go signals will be in place for 20 days.