‘Plan B’ for town traffic needed warns Glynn

Westmeath County Council should start working on the possible reintroduction a roundabout in front of McDonald’s in Mullingar a local councillor has insisted this week.

“We need a back-up plan and look at reintroducing a roundabout,” Cllr Ken Glynn told colleagues and council officials at last week’s meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad committee.

Adding that the originator of that solution was Fine Gael’s Cllr Andrew Duncan, Cllr Glynn complained that with the reopening of schools, traffic problems had immediately begun re-emerging, and he believed that as businesses re-open, the situation can only get worse.

“This has been an ongoing issue for me: I was going to raise it in January and February, but I held back given how difficult it is at the moment for business, and obviously it is very important that we support our local businesses and you don’t want any negative impact,” he said.

The Fianna Fáil man had a question on the agenda at the meeting, asking if the traffic patterns from Mount Street to the junction of Pearse Street and Castle Street are being monitored daily.

The official written response to his query stated that the traffic is monitored on an ongoing basis and the existing traffic light system is operating as designed.

Cllr Glynn refused to accept that the traffic light system is the best solution, and suggested that to believe otherwise was just burying one’s head in the sand.

“We are going to have to look at doing something,” he said.

Director of services Deirdre Reilly responded that the council will continue to monitor the situation and admitted that she agreed traffic will continue to increase with the fuller reopening of schools.