More than 700 landowners face property loss for Cork-Limerick road
The new highway is currently expected to cost in the region of €1.5bn to construct but as the earliest, it is likely to be completed in 2030, that price could change significantly. Picture: Denis Minihane.
More than 700 landowners could face losing parts of their property as they are within the 500m-wide corridor selected for the new Cork-Limerick road.
Details of the preferred route for the new road — it still has not been decided whether it will be a motorway or dual carriageway — have finally been confirmed.
It will involve the use of up to 40% of the current road, which will be widened in a number of sections and will cut an estimated 20 minutes off the journey time between the cities.
Bypasses will be created around Mallow, Newtwopothouse, Buttevant, and Charleville in Co Cork and Banogue, Co Limerick.
A segregated greenway/cycleway will be built along the entire length of the road to encourage active travel.
Proposals have been drawn up for the development of new railway stations in Stoneview in Blarney and Raheen in Limerick. Expressway bus services are also likely to increase along the route.
The new highway is currently expected to cost in the region of €1.5bn to construct but as the earliest it is likely to be completed is 2030, that price could change significantly.
Jari Howard, the N20/M20 project manager, said his team expect to have their final design and business case ready for government within two years and if given approval to proceed they hope to lodge a planning application with An Bord Pleanála in 2024.
The planning authority would be likely to make a decision in 2025.
Mr Howard said if there is no judicial review or High Court challenge after that, construction can start in 2027.
A decision on whether the new road will be a motorway or a dual carriageway will be made later this year following consultation with the Department of Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
Mr Howard said a dual carriageway with a 100km/hr speed limit will take approximately 20 minutes off the journey time, but that will obviously be more if a decision is made to proceed with the construction of a 120km/hr motorway.
He said "the economic benefits of the scheme will be immense" and will act as a counterbalance to growth in the Eastern region.
The project team have estimated that upgrading the road to dual carriageway or motorway status will prevent 200 fatal or serious injury accidents over the next 20 years. There have been 62 deaths on the road in the past 25 years, four times the national average for such type of road.
No specific funding or timeline was given for the new road in the National Development Plan published at the end of last year.
When asked about it again yesterday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin declined to give any more detail on how it will be funded.
"It's good that there is clarity around the route because that will free up land and will give people some certainty about their own futures on that route, or those who might have thought they would have been on the route," he said.
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