Lakepoint speeders may have to contend with more ramps

Council officials have agreed to look at installing additional ramps to slow down traffic in the Lakepoint estate following representations from local councillor, Aoife Davitt.

At the April meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad, the Fianna Fáil woman asked that the district place ramps close to the entrance of the estate.

“Six additional ramps have been installed recently in Lakepoint including signage and road markings,” the official written response to Cllr Davitt’s motion stated, going on to add that around €300,000 has been spent between the installation of ramps and upgrading of walkways and public lighting works in Lakepoint in the last 12 months.

“There are no plans for the installation of further speed ramps in Lakepoint Estate,” the reply concluded, but Cllr Davitt made clear that while she was happy to acknowledge the work done to date, which she described as “absolutely immense”, she felt the question needed revisiting.

“The issue is not with the large roundabout on the road but with the first roundabout inside the estate,” she said, stating that there had been “numerous incidents” on it.

Cllr Davitt said that all of the traffic to Lakepoint comes in through one entrance and the residents committee was given an assurance that there would be ramps installed closer to the entrance.

“There is an issue with the volume of traffic, the speed and the mixing of cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles,” she stressed, adding that while there was gratitude over the installation of walkways, lighting and permeability measures, the one thing the estate had been hoping for was these ramps to the front.

District engineer Pat Kavanagh agreed it is quite a large housing estate and said the suggestion would be re-examined.