*Photograph: Colm Nestor
‘Thronging crowds’ to Two Mile Gate have been welcomed as staycationers continue to choose Clare as their go-to destination while renewed appeals for traffic calming by the amenity and in Ogonnelloe have been lodged.
Cathaoirleach of the Killaloe Municipal District, Cllr Joe Cooney (FG) urged Clare County Council to make an application for funding to put traffic calming measures in the village of Ogonnelloe at the Two Mile Gate “in the interest of road safety”.
Officials within the Council are to meet the Ogonnelloe Community Group at the end of the summer “with a view to putting together a safety scheme or Active Travel scheme that could potentially be funded in the future,” senior executive engineer Niamh Madden outlined.
Further growth in Two Mile Gate is predicted by the local authority in the coming years. “This means that the Council will need to review the current situation. Any traffic calming scheme at this location will require a reduction in the speed limit and we hope to further this through the next countywide speed limit review,” Madden stated.
Additional traffic into the catchment area as a result of the Killaloe Bridge and Bypass heightens the need for calming measures, Cllr Cooney believed. “It is really important that traffic calming are put through Ogonnelloe, it is a long, straight village and it is vitally important that traffic calming measures are put in place”.
Two Mile Gate’s importance to East Clare was voiced by Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF). “It is a fantastic amenity and it uses our greatest natural resource, it is our Kilkee and Cliffs of Moher and it is fantastic to see the crowds thronging there. Something needs to be done around times of peak use where traffic is abandoned all over the place. I wouldn’t like to see an accident there that would be highlighted and detract from all the work down there”.
Success of Two Mile Gate and Ballycuggeran brings its own challenges to the Council, Cllr Pat Burke (FG) acknowledged. “It is a huge success but that success brings challenges, I would expect extra land may have to be acquired for parking. It is a hugely popular area, the amount of people when the sun shines is unbelievable”.
