TII's €12.8m roads fund to Westmeath

An investment of €12.786m has been announced by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) for work on Westmeath’s roads for the coming 12 months.

The biggest expenditure – almost €8m – is to go on the N52, but also announced is €800,000 for the revived proposal for an upgrade of the N4 Mullingar to Rooskey road.

The TII document shows allocations of €7.79m for the N52 Cloghan to Billistown project, and for the same road, the sum of €10,000 for works between Carrick Bridge and Clonfad.

Announced for the N55 Athlone to Ballymahon Road is the sum of €100,000.

The document includes an allocation of €300,000 for the Galway to Maynooth Cycleway; and also listed is a total of €852,000 for pavement renewal works on the N4, €832,000 of which is for Portnashangan.

Other allocations for the national primary network are €20,000 for works on the Moate and Kilbeggan bypasses and €10,000 for The Downs grade separation.

For works to pavements along national secondary roads, €268,800 has been announced for maintenance and 375,000 for renewal.

TII has allocated €100,000 for fencing retrofit along national primary and national secondary roads in Westmeath and €1.563m in engineering support.

There are three separate sums allowed for winter maintenance – €75,000 for the national primary routes; €195,000 for the national secondary routes and €10,000 in engineering support for the local authority teams,

The remaining allocation of €316,808 is for a range of lighting and maintenance projects.

A welcome for several aspects of the programme, including the greenway element, has come from Longford Westmeath TD, Deputy Robert Troy.

“I welcome the fact that there is an increase in the road allocation,” said Deputy Troy. “This is something we called for last year, and we do need to see greater investment in our roads and I am glad government has acknowledged there is a low level of funding: this is the least people should be able to expect so that the roads are kept in a better manner.”

The Fianna Fáil man said he was particularly pleased to see the allocation set aside for the N52.

“This is a particularly dangerous stretch of road and that money will allow it be progressed to the next stage, which is welcome, bearing in mind that the N52 is an important artery with a high volume of traffic.”

Deputy Troy noted the allocation too of €800,000 for the Mullingar to Roosky project, but said it was unfortunate that all the work done some years ago in terms of route selection will now have to be done once more after the previous plan for that stretch of the N4 was shelved.