Councillor criticises €20.8m funding for Kildare's roads

A local councillor has criticised the amount of funding for Kildare roads announced last week by Fine Gael South Kildare TD, and Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries, and the Marine, Martin Heydon.

Welcoming the announcement of €20.8m funding for the ongoing renewal of the regional and local road network in Kildare, Minister Heydon stated last week that the measure will “help make Kildare's roads safer.”

But according to Cllr Chris Pender, Social Democrats councillor for the Newbridge LEA, the allocation of €20.8m in roads funding for Kildare's roads infrastructure is simply “not enough.”

Cllr Pender has argued that while the funding is welcome, it falls far short of addressing the many concerns in relation to Kildare's regional and local roads.

“I think it's one of the highest allocations to local and regional roads, but it's nowhere near enough”, Cllr Pender told The Leinster Leader this week.

“Don't get me wrong, the funding is welcome, it's needed but if you think for instance there was a chief engineer with KCC a number of years ago and he stated that almost 80% of the traffic that is coming and going to and from Dublin is going through Kildare, using our local and regional roads.

“So we have national level traffic on our local and regional roads, and with that traffic comes obviously wear and tear that isn't normal for other local and regional roads and as a result it requires much more upkeep.”

According to Cllr Pender, “every second motion” raised at the Kildare-Newbridge Municipal District is in relation to local or regional roads.

Invariably, he said, the response is that the local authority does not have funding to address the issue or issues raised.

Cllr Pender claimed that what councillors are repeatedly told is that requests from motions will go onto the Works Programme to be submitted to the Department for funding.

While the area engineer does submit these requests, he said, the funding that comes back is “a fraction” of what was requested.

“When I calculated it, I think we got like 2.9% of the allocation which is technically in line with the roads per kilometre, I think Kildare has something like 2.34% of the local and regional roads per kilometre”, Cllr Pender said of the Minister's announcement last week.

“But that's not taking into account population growth or increased use on the roads, it's not taking into account the amount of wear and tear or the fact that a lot of our local and regional roads are alongside bogs, which comes with their own issues in terms of subsidence and all this kind of stuff.

“There are roads in our area that have had to be resurfaced or re done two or three times in the last six years.”

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Cllr Pender pointed out that much of councillors' time is spent addressing issues with the Kildare's roads, and until adequate funding is forthcoming, this will remain the case.

“I would hope that the new speed limits, reducing speed on local roads would result in less wear and tear, but we won't know that until God knows when down the line. The reality is that they need to increase the funding and it needs to be not a battle between regional and local roads and urban roads and sustainable transport. They need to increase the funding”, Cllr Pender said.

“We now have two ministers, and things haven't changed yet. I'll give them a bit of time and I'm not expecting them to change things in the first couple of months. If you look at the funding for a second bridge in Newbridge - €150,000, that wouldn't pay for a slab!

“It just seems like time and time again all of the work is local, all of the work is about getting your roads and your footpaths fixed, and people need that. But time and time again national politicians who are the ones with the purse strings, are not allocating appropriately to the local authorities that are the ones doing the work in the community.”