ARTIFICIAL road markings have been installed in Broadford by residents concerned over persistent speeding and poor road surfacing in the East Clare village.
Two Broadford residents have taken to spraying yellow paint on roads in the village’s main thoroughfare with messages such as ‘slow down’, ‘ramp’ and ‘stop’ in place of council-delivered infrastructure. Numerous potholes in the village were also circled in yellow spray paint.
Originally from Labasheeda, Elaine O’Connell lives on the village’s main street and says residents are at their wit’s end while Karen O’Connor, proprietor of the Country Store café, contacted The Clare Echo to say, “We are not getting any updates or news from the council.”
Broadford Development Association member Elaine says that while road surfacing issues may be harming local businesses, speed is the number one concern for people in Broadford.
“The main issue is speed”, she outlines. “I’ve an old woman up the road from me and she says that she’s holding her breath every time she has to go into the village, because she has to come off the footpath and walk in front of the cars”, Elaine explains.
The Broadford resident adds that she could go up and down the village’s main street seven or eight times a day and expresses concern for the village’s children, asking when will the council take action to reduce speed in the area.
“I know it was done in Mountshannon because somebody died – and I’m wondering who’s going to be the child from the 140 children in the local school that’s going to get hurt and change things here”, she notes.
The delivery of an €8 million sewerage scheme to Broadford has been cited as the main reason why road works have not taken place. The project was initially approved in December 2023 along with a similar scheme in Cooraclare. At the time of writing however, neither village has seen any significant progress on the project. Elaine says it’s an excuse that people in Broadford are tired of hearing.
Responding to a claim by cllr. Alan O’Callaghan (FF) that the council did not want to look “red-faced” by resurfacing a road only to tear it up again, the Labasheeda native states, “We know that Clare County Council are more than happy to tear up a road and then come back a month later and tear it up again. I see other roads in the county being done that aren’t a priority, in my opinion, and I wonder why can’t ours be done?”
Elaine acknowledges that the village “can be a real rat run” between 7-9am in the morning due to traffic congestion which includes two secondary school buses and HGVs coming from Limerick, something which she notes ironically makes the village safer as it slows traffic down.
A response from Clare County Council issued to The Clare Echo stated, “Broadford Wastewater Treatment Plant is a ‘demonstration’ project for delivery in partnership with Uisce Eireann through the National Measure A8 Schemes for the provision of wastewater in unsewered towns and villages”.
“Clare was one of five Local Authorities with successful bids under the scheme. There have been numerous engagements between the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage and the five Local Authorities to advance the projects. Final discussions are currently underway to reach agreement on the delivery mechanism and funding arrangements. Meanwhile the main street in Broadford is being surface addressed as part of the Schedule of Municipal District Works and will be completed by the end of September”, it continued.
A change.org petition pledging to make Broadford “a safe and welcoming place for all” through traffic calming measures and road repairs currently has nearly 400 signatures.
