Council bid to bypass residents?

The decision by Cork County Council to proceed with a €6 million road upgrade project in Glanmire is shocking and calls into question the council’s priorities and loyalties (Irish Examiner, October 23).

The work is being undertaken, as the county manager has stated previously, to facilitate the development of 1,200 new houses in the area by a private contractor.

An Bord Pleanála shot down the council’s previous grant of planning permission for this development following trenchant local opposition.

The council is now trying to outmanoeuvre local residents by removing one of the main sticking points — the condition of the access road to both the current and proposed developments.

This at a time when the county council has taken pains to point out that it is desperately short of cash and has been drastically cutting back on services and staff.

This also comes at a time when demand for new housing is negligible, and ‘For Sale’ signs festoon the entire area concerned.

In the past 15 years, I believe, more than 1,500 dwelling have been built in 13 new estates along this stretch of road (about three kilometres). Yet the road has remained in the same winding condition, fit only for the traffic of the 1970s.

Despite the thousands of new residents who have moved into the area, the road has received little more than a few shovels of tarmac. Public lighting, signage, road markings, etc, have all been precious slow in following the sprawl.

Now, following a sustained campaign by a large developer, the county council finds it can spend €6 million to prioritise this “sticky” road when others in the county will barely have the potholes filled.

It seems the council has sided with the developer to build (unwanted?) houses against the genuinely held concerns of so many local residents.

Of course, if the houses do ever get built the council will be due a neat windfall in development contributions.

Brendan Malone

Chestnut Meadows

Ballinglanna

Glanmire

Co Cork