Council asked to put all regional roads on new gritting schedule

Eilís Ryan

Westmeath County Council is to look at the cost of gritting the 5 per cent of the county’s regional roads not currently on the coverage schedule.

The decision came on foot of a proposal by Cllr Tom Farrell seconded by Cllr Sorca Clarke at a meeting of Westmeath County Council’s Special Policy Committee (SPC) on planning and transportation.

It was backed by the rest of the SPC members, who each had concerns about various locations not currently listed for gritting.

Earlier, SPC members were told that Westmeath County Council will “never” get to grit all the roads in the county, but there were 522km of the county’s road network on last year’s gritting schedule and 95 per cent of the county’s regional roads were covered.

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This map shows the routes that are to be gritted in the winter of 2018/19 – the roads marked red will be done by Westmeath County Council and the ones marked blue will be done by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII).
 

Senior engineer Damien Brennan set out the council’s plans for coping with whatever the weather may throw at Westmeath this winter, but director of services, Barry Kehoe, cautioned that resources always affect the level of action that can be taken.

“The purpose of the schedule of priority routes is to make sure everyone in the county is fairly close to a treated route, and that in times of need, they can plot their route from A to B along the treated route, fairly easily,” Mr Kehoe said, as he and Mr Brennan fielded requests from councillors to add several other stretches of road to the schedule.

“The key thing is to make sure all the major population centres are connected,” he continued before admitting he was aware that 5 per cent of the regional roads are not treated and also some heavily-trafficked local roads.

The issue was, he pointed out, the resources required to cover all these extra roads – including the requirement to ensure drivers did not exceed their permitted number of driving hours, and the limits there are on the capacity of the trucks and gritters.

Mr Kehoe said it was more important to spend money on repairs to roads than on adding road to the gritting schedule, since ultimately, all gritting does is allow people to travel faster.

It was better to maintain the fabric of the road, to ensure it was in good condition for the 99 per cent of the time when there is no snow or ice.

“I know you don’t necessarily agree with me, but it’s a question of priorities,” he said.

Mr Brennan said that Westmeath County Council had to grit the roads almost twice as many times in 2017/2018 as over the winter of 2016/2017.

Staff were out 87 nights and used 5,008 tonnes of salt last winter compared to the previous winter when they were out 48 times and used 2,480 tonnes of salt.

On some occasions in the last year, the gritters had to go out three or four times in the same night, he added.

The cost at undertaking the gritting comes in annually at between €450,000 and €500,000, depending on the severity of the weather. The average cost per night, Mr Brennan said, is around €7,000.

Cllr Tom Farrell took issue with Mr Kehoe on the question of gritting regional roads: it was his view, he said, that 100 per cent of the regional road network should be gritted, and he asked that a costing for this be prepared.

Cllr Sorca Clarke seconded his proposal.

 

Tributes to gritting teams

During the debate, Cllr Emily Wallace, who chaired the meeting, and Cllr Clarke led the tributes to the council staff who undertake the gritting and road clearing work, as they and their colleagues asked to have further stretches of road included on the gritting routes.

Cllr Wallace asked if the Ardmore Road could be included on the schedule, especially given how busy it is set to become, while Cllr Tom Farrell asked the stretch of the R391 from Horseleap to the Cross of Donore could be included, saying that road served the residents of a huge area.

Cllr Clarke asked if more use could be made of social media to get word out relating to the winter gritting schedule, before asking if the Old Dublin Road in Mullingar as far as Lidl could be added to the list, together with the Clonmellon to Athboy Road, the R391 around Ballinea, the Killucan to Kinnegad road and the road between Coole and Abbeylara.

Another issue, Cllr Clarke continued, is the danger at housing estates which have inclines at their entrances, such as Cloon Lara, on the Athlone Road. There were about four such problem areas in Mullingar and she asked that the entrances to these estates be gritted.

A query raised by Cllr Brian Crum was on how low stocks are allowed to go. He also wondered if it would not be efficient for the council to attach a gritter device to an articulated lorry. The council executive has undertaken to look into this issued.

Cllr Crum also argued strongly to have the road from Saunderson’s Bridge to the N52 gritted.

Cllr Liam McDaniel remarked that there seemed to be a resource issue since there are several roads that have been listed by councillors as being in need of gritting but they have not been added to the list, including the Ballinagore to Dalystown Road, which has two schools on it.

SPC member John Geoghegan asked who was responsible for maintenance of the footpaths and roundabouts and asked that roundabouts with weeds be better maintained to give a better image of the town.