South Tipp needs €5m to repair damaged roads - €3.5m on N24 alone
South Tipperary needs 3.5 million euro to repair the N24 alone, following the harsh winter weather of the last few weeks.
An estimate of up to 5 million euro will be needed for the complete reconstruction and sealing of roads in the county, estimates Director of Services for Roads, Billy McEvoy.
There has been "almost complete failure" of the road surface in some of the worst affected areas.
Mr McEvoy was speaking at the February meeting of South Tipperary County Council this week.The Director also told the meeting that on January 19 he wrote to the Department of the Environment to report he had spent 375,000 euro on the county's roads in the first three weeks of the year. He predicted that another 300,000 euro will be spent by the County Council on the roads in South Tipperary over the next month on emergency repairs.
Mr McEvoy told councillors that all resources have been committed to emergency repairs for the last two weeks. Temporary repairs are all that can be carried out because of the current weather, he explained.
He hopes to start permanent work by the middle of March, and structural foundation work by mid February.
All the patching units are out, including a machine which has been hired for the task.
On January 15, Mr McEvoy wrote to the National Roads Authority to say 13km of the N24 has been badly damaged by the weather.
The fact that 3.5 million euro is needed to repair the N24 alone shows how serious the situation is, he said.
Three times the normal amount of road salt has been used this year, 1900 tones, according to the Director of Services.
Mr McEvoy explained that no damage was caused to the national roads which had a proper structural foundation, similar to what has been used in the UK where roads have not been as damaged as Irish roads by the weather.
An inspector from the NRA drove the N24 and N76 last week, Mr McEvoy went on to tell the meeting. He said that the council are looking for funding from the NRA to carry out permanent and not temporary repairs.
He said he hopes there will be emergency funding made available to local authorities because in some areas the road has almost suffered "almost complete failure." He said that local authorities do not have sufficient funds to carry out repairs from their normal funds.Councillors were told that area roads meetings would be held in March, when the annual roads budget allocation has been received from the Department of the Environment.
"The bottom line is we are going to be seriously short," Cllr Michael Fitzgerald commented. "To maintain roads this year is going to be extremely difficult."
Cllr John Crosse observed that we had seen "unprecedented weather" and said the "damage caused was unbelievable."
Pointing out that the road from Clonmel to Cahir is so damaged there are "serious safety implications," Cllr Darren Ryan said "at this stage you would nearly need a hovercraft" to travel the road.
"Just throwing tar into potholes and doing a quick fix doesn't solve the problem. Within two days the pothole is back," said Cllr Jack Crowe.
Cllr Denis Leahy said that in the Tipperary Town area there were three crews out repairing roads at the moment. "I don't know what else we can do. It's obviously a huge financial undertaking. What is the implication of this. Can we sustain this kind of thing? The government can't turn its back."
County manager, Ned O'Connor, said that it was up to each county to make its case to the Department of the environment and the NRA for funding. South Tipperary County Council has already done this, he said.
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Weather for Clonmel
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South
