Councillors in every municipal district of Meath should be alerted to upcoming roadworks, where traffic management plans are to be put in place, so that people could make alternative travel arrangements, a Sinn Fein Cllr has told Meath county Council. Helen Meyer was speaking to a motion she had tabled at a recent meeting of the council. She said that in the weeks before the meeting, it was the intention of the council to resurface the Ballybin Road but there were major hold ups and the councillors had not been informed of the pending disruption.
If traffic plans were to be put in place, it showed that there was going to be disruption, she said. She wasn’t interested in potholes or other one-off jobs but if a traffic plan was going to be required then she would like councillors to be given notice, Cllr Meyer said. An official replied that he wanted to indicate the quantum of work that went on and also the amount of communication that had to take place. Every Friday around lunchtime councillors were given notice in their mail boxes about pending small works programmes for the coming week, along
with the road number, and the amount of information the council has at that time.
Notice was also given of notices of intention to close roads and councillors are asked whether they want to make submissions on these closures. We probably have 6,500 applications for road opening licences in the county. “If a road opening is required you (councillors) are notified. If there are stop-go systems being put in the council does not tend to notify councillors because of the sheer volume of work
involved”. He cautioned councillors about the particular notice of motion because, he said, “I don’t want to inundate you with communications that might get lost. There is also the problem of contractors who might want to cancel works at the last minute.”
