*High Street.
NORMAL traffic flow can only be restored to High Street in Ennis in autumn 2025 at the earliest, officials in Clare County Council have said.
Ennis’ ongoing public realm works which started in January 2024 has led to “bottleneck traffic”, Cllr Pat Daly (FF) stated.
He sought clarification from the Ennis Municipal District on when High Street/Upper Parnell Street “will reopen to motorists, so that traffic from Abbey Street Car Park and Bank Place will be in a position to drive into Parnell Street car park, thus alleviating a lot of the bottleneck traffic that Ennis town centre is experiencing presently”.
Executive engineer, Shane O’Grady outlined that Shareridge Ltd, the appointer contractor for the €11.5m public realm works “is currently progressing four separate work areas, in accordance with the agreed phasing plan. At present, significant major works are underway at O’Connell Square, and the priority is to have this area completed at the earliest opportunity to restore traffic flow through the town centre. The works will move to Bank Place, once O’Connell square has been significantly completed”.
He continued, “This sequential approach has been adopted to minimise the impact on the town centre during the construction works, and to optimise traffic flow through Abbey Street and O’Connell Square at all times. As High Street /Old Friary lane through traffic depends on connectivity through Bank Place, it will only be possible to restore normal traffic flow to High Street in the Autumn of 2025, upon completion of works at Bank Place. It continues to be necessary to close streets to allow these works to be completed safely, and the project team and contractor, together with Ennis MD are working hard to coordinate activities to keep traffic impacts to a minimum and ensure that Ennis is kept open for business throughout the remaining months of this project”.
According to Cllr Daly, “the flow of traffic coming from Bank Place and Abbey Street seems to clog and create a bottle neck”. He accepted the reply that O’Connell Square had been to be completed first. “The full closure of O’Connell Street is one of the main reasons traffic congestion is an issue. When it is complete, Ennis will look beautiful”.
Seconding the motion, Cllr Tom O’Callaghan (FF) commented, “progress is being made, we’ve to bear it out a bit longer”.
A temporary sign to encourage motorists back down via the Mill Rd was suggested by Cllr Antoinette Baker Bashua (FF). “A sign to say best practice to go out onto the Cloister Rd to free up Bindon St and the people going up to Parnell St might have the options and it won’t have the bottleneck, we all follow the sheep and go the same way”. She said, “I welcome the update but not so much O’Connell St being reopened because I like the pedestrianisation”.
