Longford County Council to focus on salt barn relocation

Relocation of a salt gritting barn in Longford town is one of the main issues that elected members of Longford Municipal District are keen to resolve before the current council finishes up in May of this year.

The long-running saga has dominated conversation at many Longford MD meetings, with no solution to the 'unbearable' noise pollution levels being offered over the past 18 months to two years since concerns were first raised.

Following a request by elected members at the January MD meeting, area engineer Eamonn Bennett returned to this month's meeting with a full report on the cost of not only moving the salt barn itself, but the entirety of the complex, including two area depots that have been relocated to the Park Road site over the years, an archive store and an Irish Water laboratory facility also located on the site.

The cost of moving everything and giving up the site to housing would amount to an “astonishing” figure of over €6 million, according to Mr Bennett's comprehensive report.

Read more: Moves afoot to relocate Longford salt gritting barn

Councillors were reluctant to agree on moving the entire complex, insisting that the main issue was the salt barn itself and that this is what should be focused on.

“Really and truthfully, my main concern has always been the noise that has been generated from the filling of lorries into the night when we have inclement weather,” said Cllr Peggy Nolan.

“And it is causing great hardship to the residents. It actually is adjacent to four different housing estates. It shouldn’t be there, so whatever the cost to remove it, we owe that to our tenants. If it was a private landlord that was causing that sort of upheaval to their tenants, there would be legal action.”

Cllr Joe Flaherty agreed that the salt barn was the main issue and that six million was a lot of money to pay for the relocation of the entire complex.

“€6.3 million seems an astonishing cost for the work when you look at how it’s broken down. You’d nearly think children’s hospital looking at it,” he said.

“But if you consider that the Finesse Medical are building a state of the art factory outlet for €7.2m. St Christopher’s are building a new school for €6m. They’re big projects. We seem to be spending an awful lot of money on this.

“If you just focus on the salt barn, machinery store, office, canteen… strip those out and you can bring it down to two million. I think it’s something that needs to be done piecemeal, and remove the worst offending ones early on in the process.”

Mr Bennett, however, recommended that councillors consider relocating the entire complex as the noise pollution was a result of more than just the salt barn.

“I don’t mind what you decide; the only thing I would say is you can leave the lab. You can leave the archive store, whatever you want. But to eliminate the noise complaints, you’ll have to take the area depot out of there and the salt barn,” he said, stressing that the area depots that were moved from other locations in the town were cause for several noise complaints over the years.

“They're night time works and we were getting complaints all the time. And it will happen again,” he added.

Councillors remained firm, however, in their resolve to only relocate the salt barn for the time being, stressing that the salt barn and the loading of gritting trucks has always been the issue.

Cllr Mae Sexton, who first raised the issue two years ago, said that it was the “bullying tactics” of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) that resulted in the location of the salt barn on Park Road in the first place.

“Despite our lack of engineering skills, there was nobody in this chamber (at that time) that wasn’t against it being there. Every one of us without fail said it was not the right place for it.

“And we knew nothing about salt barns,” she fumed at last week's meeting, stressing that TII “bullied” them into agreeing to locate the facility at the Park Road site by essentially telling them to 'use the money or lose it'.

“We then went ahead with absolute ironclad guarantees that there would be no noise after a certain time at night, that the lorries would be loaded when the expectation was there that they would have to be used.

“We didn’t believe it and we were right. It never worked from day one. And then I put down my notice of motion 18 months or two years ago asking for this to be moved and now I find that since that notice of motion, somebody took a decision to move all the additional noisy machinery into that yard.

“We should have moved this salt barn when it became evident that it’s keeping people awake day and night. And we certainly shouldn’t have added to the noise,” Cllr Sexton continued.

“I think that’s deplorable. The people up there have a right to complain about the disgraceful noise. It would never have been tolerated if it was a private development.”

However, Cllr Sexton stressed, the main issue is the noise from salt barn and it should only be the salt barn that the council relocate for the time being.

Read more: Moves to relocate Longford salt barn take fresh twist

“It has to go. People up there can’t take it anymore. So I am proposing that we find some place to put the salt barn and move it out and if that site happens to suit our lorries as well, then well and good.

“But I think the noise from all of the stuff that’s there for the salt barn is more concerning than a few lorries coming and going with the odd works that go on at night.

“I just can’t grasp it. I can’t get my head around the fact that a simple moving of that couldn’t be done to a safer location where it’s easier accessible and not disturbing all of those people and that was the purpose of my notice of motion 18 months or two years ago,” she said.

Cathaoirleach of Longford MD Cllr Seamus Butler then addressed the issue of mitigation for tenants who are suffering from the noise pollution, stating that some form of compensation is surely in order for the people who have put up with this issue for so long.

Whatever decision is reached by the council, he said, it would not come into effect for next winter or even the following winter.

Everyone in the chamber agreed that the salt barn needed to be moved, said Cllr Butler, “but in the meantime, could we look at mitigation for our tenants?”

After what the Cathaoirleach said was “a very good discussion” on the issue, it was agreed that the relocation of the salt barn - and the cost of mitigation for tenants - would be one of the main topics on the agenda for the next Longford MD meeting on March 27.

For now, though, councillors are all in agreement that the salt barn needs to be moved out of the Park Road complex to a more suitable location.

Read more: Salt barn relocation row in Longford prompts heated debate