Woeful entrance to Cork

Last week, while on holiday, I travelled the main road (N8/N25) from Cork City to Waterford and was taken aback by the lack of maintenance of the Cork end of this road, especially along the Tivoli dual carriageway to the Dunkettle roundabout.

The median hedgerow is overgrown, and the Dunkettle roundabout resembles a badly ploughed field. There are baskets on roadside poles along the way that presumably contained flowers which now sprout weeds. Given this is the main entrance to the City for tourists from Rosslare port and the north-east of the country, including Dublin, this is a very poor first impression of the southern capital.

If anyone from Cork City Council wants to see what a well-maintained stretch of road looks like, I would urge them to drive to Dungarvan. Here there are at least half a dozen roundabouts on the town by-pass featuring pieces of sculpture, trees, shrubs and flowers in abundance. All the hedgerows are neatly cut and the grass margins could substitute for golfing greens.