Councillors call for more Tipperary roads to be salted this Winter

The Tipperary-Cahir-Cashel Municipal District November meeting was held recently in Tipperary Town. One of the big issues that councillors raised during the meeting was regarding the salting of more roads in Tipperary by the council this Winter.

Many councillors argued for more roads to be added to the council’s current route to ensure they’re safer for people travelling.
Cllr Roger Kennedy first brought up the issue saying that there is an elevated bridge at Goats cross that is dangerous in icy conditions.

Cllr Máirín McGrath agreed with Mr. Kennedy said that “salting routes don’t go far enough, I know we always say we have limitations with resources but the more local roads are nearly more heavily trafficked, you have school bus routes, people going to work, and we need to go further to try and salt them or at least provide salt to communities. I’ve seen that Galway County Council have salt bins that are provided for people. I’m not sure of the insurance implications of people salting themselves but it was lethal the other day in areas around Newcastle where they’re not salted and they’re busy roads. We really need to do more to try and expand our salting routes.”

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Cllr Annemarie Ryan said “I remember having the same conversation last year about this, about the hairpin bend up the Glen of Aherlow. It’s difficult enough as it is but when the ice hits that road it’s impassable really, so I just want to make a call again if it is possible to add on extra routes if we can. Those roads that are really really dangerous at the best of times become impassable during the ice and snow."

Cllr Marie Murphy asked for the council to have some more engagement with Waterford County Council to see if they would come as far as the county bounds to ice the roads in the area as well.

“A lot of people travel out to Lismore or Dungarven to work” she noted. She wanted to know can the council engage with Waterford to see if they have the capacity to increase their salting routes to cover from the v to Lismore and Cappaquin.
Cllr Liam Browne asked if the council could look at icing the Racecourse road in Rosegreen as it links to regional roads. Cllr Browne said “It’s used very heavily by people coming from the Tipperary direction for work in Clonmel, all the big industries in Clonmel are on the Rosegreen side, Abbott, Boston and Bulmers, even though it’s a link road it’s almost as busy as a regional road and it’s not being salted and it’s quite dangerous.”

Senior Engineer James Murray answered councillors calls saying “we spend over a million euros every year on salting routes, we have 12 routes, we cover a great proportion of our road network, more than any of our neighbours, we have agreements with Limerick and Offally to try pick up parts of the network on the boundary. We’re not in a position to expand it, there’s a budgetary restriction obviously, there also are restrictions to the working time acts.

“Last year we had looked at the hairpin bend on the Glen of Aherlow and it was a case of what do you want to drop from the programme to put this into the programme. It is problematic in regards to trying to get the 12 routes around the county in a fashion that covers as much as we can.”

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