New crossings, parking bays and paths sought for a Longford village
The councillor originally made the call during the May meeting of the Granard Municipal District
Councillor David Cassidy is hoping to bring about changes to access and road safety in Drumlish village after calling on the council to provide a number of pedestrian safety and accessibility improvements.
The councillor originally submitted three separate motions during a previous meeting of Granard Municipal District and since then has been working in the background to keep Drumlish on the council’s radar.
Cllr Cassidy first called on Longford County Council to allocate two disabled parking bays on Mary Street, Drumlish on both sides of the R198 close to the existing traffic lights in the centre of the village.
He told the meeting back in May, “Increased footfall and a few more restaurants open in Drumlish recently, it was brought to my attention recently that there are no real disabled parking bays in the village. I would be in support of this.”
Cllr Garry Murtagh concurred the bays were a requirement particularly now as there was “extra commercial activity happening in the area” with new businesses having opened up.
Senior Executive Engineer, David Coppinger, said the council had been looking at the issues in question. “We have been looking at putting in some disabled parking spaces on the street in Drumlish. I am going to say though, this time, we’re going to make sure that there is local agreement.”
In his second motion, Cllr Cassidy called on the council to install “a raised pedestrian crossing on the R198 in Drumlish directly after the Mill heading in the direction of Arva."
In response, Mr Coppinger said the matter was high on their priority list. He told Cllr Cassidy, “Again this is one that came to our attention last year and we’re determined that, if at all possible, to do something with it this year, subject of course to funding, as it always is.
Cllr Cassidy replied that the people who had raised the issue with him would be happy to hear the council were committed to rectifying the problem.
In his third motion, Cllr Cassidy called on Longford County Council to install a footpath from “Main Street (Mohill Road) on the L-10102-0 connecting Currabaun Park housing estate to the existing footpath in the village and also a connecting footpath on the L-1016-0 towards Derawley.”
The motion was seconded by Cllr Garry Murtagh.
Mr Coppinger replied that the council was aware of the situation on the Mohill Road and also at Derawley but added that the bottom line was that there were a lot of places like those where footpaths were required.
“It’s on a list that we have of identified sites and those two are on it,” Mr Coppinger explained. “You’ll be sick of hearing me say this but the provision of paths is also subject to availability of funding. We’ll examine the location and see what we can do but it always comes down to funding.”
Funded by the local democracy reporting scheme