Longford County Council: Calls for extension of salting programme

Longford County Council's road salting programme is at capacity and cannot be extended. The situation was highlighted at a meeting of Longford MD when Cllr Gerry Hagan sought an extension of the programme.
Cllr Hagan's motion appealed to Longford MD to include a stretch of road (the L1011), from Kiernan’s Forge Crossroads to the crossroads at Melview on the winter salting and gritting programme.
He said the salting plan in operation presents a danger for motorists: “The road is salted and gritted from Cahanagh crossroads to Melview crossroads. The same road continues on to Kiernan's Forge, towards Ballinalee and Aughnacliffe roads, but it is not salted.”

He explained the reason for his concerns saying: “If I'm using that road the first kilometre is salted, so I feel safe driving. There is no sign to say 'sorry from here on the road is not salted, so beware',” Cllr Hagan said.
The Fine Gael representative suggested that there were frequent accidents on the road in frosty weather: “It is deadly, deadly dangerous. For walkers as well as motorists.”
He concluded: “It beggars belief that someone would salt half the road and leave the other half unsalted. It is reckless and irresponsible.”
Eamonn Bennett, Senior Executive Engineer, said the issue was raised when the salting programme was first drawn up, however resources dictated that further salting was not possible. He said a total of seven trucks cover the county's salting plan.

“The current situation with salting is that we are at full capacity. In fact we are over capacity. We have at least two drivers who reload. One man takes five hours to complete his route. That's against best practices, and is unsafe,” Mr Bennett explained.
Mr Bennett said there are not enough trucks, drivers or salt to add extra roads to the existing programme.

The Senior Executive Engineer had a drastic solution to the issue: “If you feel that having part of the road salted and the rest not salted is dangerous, we can remove the section from Melview to Cahanagh from the programme to make it safe.”
Mr Bennett said a change in the way in which salting is done in the future may improve the situation: “TII have approved a proposal to change salting from solid granule salt to liquid salt. They will supply trucks with liquid brine. Should that happen, the possibility of expanding the salt route will become available.”

Mr Bennett said the only road that has been added to the salting programme in recent times is the Fostragh Road: “Tat was added for very good reasons; steep slopes and people not able to travel. The road you are talking about is relatively flat, but it does have bad bends.”

Mr Bennett said the only solution would be to change the route by taking out the section in question and putting up warning notices.