Cllr asks Minister to step-in over plans to replace roundabouts

Date Published: 07-Nov-2011

By Denise McNamara

The Minister for Transport has been called on to investigate Galway City Council’s handling of the scheme to replace roundabouts with signalised junctions linked into a central control centre.

Galway councillor Padraig Conneely has called on Minister Leo Varadkar to investigate the City Council’s handling of the N6 multi-modal corridor scheme, which has been delayed as a result of planning difficulties.

Last September councillors narrowly voted in favour of the plan to remove two of the six roundabouts along the N6 corridor after a concerted opposition campaign spearheaded by the Galway Chamber of Commerce, which was responding to widespread fury at the traffic chaos which reigned across the city last August due to three sets of road works on key arteries.

Several councillors who had supported the replacement of the first roundabout got cold feet and wanted to delay the roll-out of the next phase until they could see whether traffic gridlock would result.

The scheme only scraped through at the eleventh hour after councillors were warned that without their approval that, night funding of €6m would be lost, which included more than €1m to set up an Urban Traffic Management Control (UTMC) system to centrally control the lights to give priority to public transport and react to various traffic conditions.

They were told that the scheme would be completed within 18 months and would be fully operational well in time to cope with the 600,000 visitors tipped to descend on the city in July for the Volvo Ocean Race.

However it emerged a fortnight ago that two of the roundabouts will not be completed in time for the mammoth event as they involved variations to the City Development Plan.

Work on the removal of the Browne (Corrib Park) and Kirwan (Menlo Park Hotel) roundabouts will now be delayed until at least August because of the additional planning difficulties involved as a result of the junctions encroaching on open space.

The full scheme is not expected to be completed now until the end of next year.

In his letter to Minister Varadkar, Cllr Conneely said he was concerned that the controversial scheme was being mismanaged and he urged an investigation by the department.

“Part of the scheme is not in compliance with the City Development Plan of which councillors were not informed at the commencement of the scheme,” he wrote.

“This will delay the project and add to the city’s traffic problems and will involve an extra cost. I am requesting that you as Minister for Transport request a full report on this project and the mismanagement of the project to date.

“I am concerned that the project management of Galway City Council is questionable and should be investigated by your department.”

A spokesman for Minister Varadkar confirmed to the Connacht Sentinel that the letter had been received yesterday.

“It is being considered by the department. However it would be inappropriate to comment on anything further without the department having had the time to consider the issues raised. We will be responding to the matter in full in due course.”

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel