Pot hole problem resurfacing say councillors

Sean McMahon

The phones of county councillors are hopping again with residents along rural roads in the Cootehill/Bailieborough Municipal District outraged over the potholed roads. This week’s meeting of the Municipal District Council in Bailieborough heard from several councillors that people are livid with the fact that they are paying taxes and property tax, yet their roads are like obstacle courses.
Places like Laragh, Knockbride and areas around Ballyhaise, Redhills and Stradone and around Kingscourt are all seeing deteriorating road surfaces as the wet, winter weather takes hold.
Highlighting the issue, Cllr Val Smith said he is inundated with calls from people about pot holes on their roads and asked what is going to be done about it.
“We have to have an answer for people who are living along these roads. I know we are working to a budget, but someone will have to break the bank somewhere, because this budget is no good to the people living on these rural roads,” said Cllr Val Smith.
“I told people three or four months ago the roads would be done and they still have not been done – we have to have a straight answer that a road will be done on such a day in such a week. I would like to be in a position to tell a person a road will be done in a month or two months or it will not be done”, added Cllr Smith.
Fianna Fáil councillors Fergal Curtin and Clifford Kelly agreed. They emphasised that people are paying taxes yet they are hitting potholes, day in and day out, and it is very frustrating. They said the issue will have to be tackled.
When the chairperson Niamh Smyth asked the executive engineer Pat Gaynor how often does the pothole patcher go out to fix potholes, Mr Gaynor said that finance does not determine whether the patcher is sent out or not to an area.
“We do have to be realistic in regard to the money spent and I have to ensure that the money I spend on your behalf is spent wisely,” he said.
Mr Gaynor said that if a road is gone beyond a patching operation, there is no point in sending out a patcher.
“We send out the patcher when we determine that is the right course of action. If there is a drainage issue, the patching will only stay in a couple of weeks and then it is back out,” explained Mr Gaynor.
He told Cllr Val Smith that if he gives him the name of a road, he will have an answer for him before the end of the week. “We will go out to the road and do an analysis of it and we will tell you exactly what needs to be done,” he said.
Cllr Curtain said that if it is not feasible to fill potholes, it would be important to give people a time scale in relation to when the road would be strengthened.

Staffing level down 25%
The Director of Services, Joe McLoughlin, said he totally acknowledged the points that were made. “I don’t think you can make the observations you are making without having due regard to the financial position we face as a local authority – we have 50% of the resources we had in 2009,” he said.
Mr McLoughlin also pointed to a 25% staff reduction. “We are doing extraordinarily well, in my humble opinion, in terms of containing the situation,” he said.
“We are spending in the region of €350,000 in the town of Bailieboro and we previously spent that sum in Kingscourt. If that money was not being spent to keep the main towns operational for business, then that money could go to the rural areas,” explained Mr McLoughlin.
Cllr Kelly said it was recognised that the Council was down in funding. “That is why I am proposing that we go back to the Minister and see if we can get an increase in our road funding,” he said.

Town V county
Cllr Kelly also warned that they should be conscious of not creating a town v rural situation. “We could end up with protests from different roads and we don’t want that. I would not like to think there would be a town/rural situation that we would be pitted against one another,” he said.