DESPITE making a successful application to the National Transport Authority (NTA), Clare County Council have been unable to complete footpath and public lighting works in the heart of Lissycasey.
In January of this year, €250,000 was allocated for Lissycasey footpaths in the county’s tranche of Active Travel funding which totalled €5.3m. The initial proposal envisaged an upgrade which made it necessary to have a continuous path to either end of the village.
However, a number of concerns were raised by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) regarding road and traffic safety as the road is situated on the N67 national secondary route.
Preparation of a feasibility and option selection report was requested by the NTA following “ongoing workshops” between them and the Council’s road design office.
Senior executive engineer in the West Clare MD, Alan Kennelly confirmed, “The initial proposal is no longer the NTA’s preferred design solution and the scope of the project will change. The road design office have prepared the requested report together with a suite of options which includes a multi criteria analysis of the available options to complete the Active Travel works in Lissycasey”.
This report has been submitted to the NTA for review with a response awaited by the Council “to progress matters”.
An update had been sought by Cllr PJ Kelly (FF) at a recent meeting of the West Clare MD who struggled to comprehend the delay, “I hope common sense would prevail”. Also at this meeting, he appealed to the local authority to bring the L-20681-0 at Derrynaclicka, Kilmurry McMahon to an acceptable state of repair.
This road is not included on either this year’s schedule of MD works or the three year programme, Kennelly confirmed. He described it as “a local tertiary road and as such carries very low volumes of traffic”.
