Call for audit of redundant road signage in city

Galwegians are living in ‘pole-land’ with up to 150 surplus poles dotted across the city, it has been claimed.

A Labour Party City Councillor says it’s a ‘sign of the times’ that the City Council is stuck in a ‘time warp’ with its outdated signage.

Cllr Billy Cameron has asked that the local authority carries out an audit of all of its road signs across Galway City.

He believes that there are at least 50 sign-poles in each of the three city electoral wards that are ‘superfluous’, and that some 150 poles across the city should be removed between now and the yearend.

Cllr Cameron says the number offending signs owned by the local authority is too extensive to list.

“For example, on Dr Colohan Road, on Quincentenary Road and on Renmore Road towards the Eye Cinema, there are signs warning motorists that their cars could be clamped or towed away. It’s nearly 10 years now since we had a clamping regime in operation in the city, and we don’t tow cars away either, unless they are extremely bad.

“There are private areas where clamping is in operation but there is no need for Council signs frightening people about clampers that don’t exist,” said Cllr Cameron.

There are other poles in the city, he said, that are doing nothing.

“Have a look at the poles on Newcastle Road Lower – there is nothing on those poles. I can’t remember what signs used to be there, but they have been standing there, without any signs, for at least four years. They are not needed.

“Then you have a whole load of signs that are so old and so dirty that you cannot see what it is they are telling you to do, and so they are surplus to requirements. If you can’t see the signs because of dirt or because they’re faded, what’s the point in having them?”

Cllr Cameron has submitted a motion that calls on the Council to remove 150 poles between now and December. This would also include what he calls ‘vanity signs’.

“They’re all over the place, these ‘vanity signs’. And it’s not just the City Council that put them up, you have places like NUI Galway who have these as well. What is the point in having big signs telling you that this road was designed by such and such an engineer and that this scheme was funded by the EU.

“They were put up in the boom as vanity signs. They serve no purpose. They are a blight on the landscape – I believe that if they were removed we would do far better in Tidy Towns and IBAL because they are street litter as far as I’m concerned. There’s no need for them. There are a lot of signs put up in the Millennium, like the one at the Millennium Children’s Park, and they’ve been there for 15 years – there’s no need,” he said.