Council receives €9m to repair €14m road damage
WICKLOW RECEIVED more than €9 million under the 2010 Regional and Local Roads programme last week.
However with a bill of more than €14 million as a result of the Big Freeze Wicklow County Council is going to have to dig deep into its own pockets.
Under the programme announced by Minster for Transport, Noel Dempsey, last week Wicklow County Council received €9,118,098. Arklow and Wicklow Town Councils each received €195,000 while Bray Town Council received €425,000.
Director of Services for Roads with Wicklow County Council Sean Quirke said the council would be supplementing the grant allocation with its own resources. 'The one good thing about the grant allocation is that we were given flexibility in how we can spend it. This will allow us to target the areas of greatest priority. Usually the grant allocation is divided up into specific categories and you can only spend the money in that category.'
He said Wicklow County Council had, as part of their allocation, an improvement grant of €5.2 million to spend 'as we see fit'. The 2010
allocation was a slight improvement on last year's grant but Mr. Quirke said the council will also use its own resources to supplement the grant. 'We are working on how we are going to divide up the money at the moment.' He said that in total the council hoped to have in the region of €10 million to spend of the maintenance and repair of local and regional roads.
He said that because the allocation fell short of the actual damage caused by the Big Freeze Wicklow County Council will have to reprioritise their planned programme of works as 'some roads have overtaken others.'
Deputy Billy Timmins said while he welcomed the small increase on last year's allocation it is imperative to carry out repairs to the worst affect roads as 'a matter of urgency'.
Cllr. Nicky Kelly said the amount received was 'derisory. The Government are going to need to make a serious one off injection of funding because many of Wicklow's roads have been damaged beyond repair. This is a desperate insult to people who have been patient about being forced to travel on dangerous and impassable roads. People are getting fed up and what the Government provided was a pittance.'
