Landowner payoffs hamper Cork road plans

Cork County Council is being hampered in providing road safety projects because landowners are looking for payoffs as “long as telephone numbers”.

Padraig Barrett, the council’s director of roads, said as a result the council wasn’t in a position to carry out as many safety improvements as it wanted.

He appealed to landowners “who are willing to take normal money” to contact officials or county councillors if they feel they’re in a position to hand over some land at dangerous junctions where sightlines can be improved to make it safer for motorists.

Mr Barrett made the appeal at a meeting of the council’s Northern Division after Cllr Noel McCarthy raised the issue of low cost safety improvement schemes.

Cllr McCarthy said all councillors knew of dangerous junctions in their areas and wanted to know if compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) could be used in cases where landowners were looking for excessive amounts of money.

Mr Barrett said going down the CPO route was also a costly measure.

“If there are willing landowners who see the benefit for their community and willing to co-operate that’s where we want to go,” he added.

Cllr Deirdre O’Brien asked what progress was being made on widening “a very dangerous” section of the N73 (Mallow-Mitchelstown road) at Clogher/Waterdyke, close to the village of Shanballymore.

Mr Barrett told her that consultants had completed a design for its upgrade but any work on it would be subject to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) approval, because TII was in charge of national secondary roads. He said this approval was not yet forthcoming.

Meanwhile, a number of councillors also highlighted the need for traffic calming measures outside some national schools.

Cllr John Paul O’Shea said speeding motorists were causing danger at Boherbue NS, while Cllr Gearóid Murphy said a similar safety issue existed at Lyre NS.

Council engineers said they are drawing up a countywide policy for traffic calming outside schools.