Road safety measures needed in rural villages

The speed at which cars career past the school in Moyvore is frightening, according to Cllr Vinny McCormack who has called for specific funding each year for speed reductions and safety measures in every town and village.

He said the “great project” at High Street, Ballymore, should be replicated in other areas. “We need to develop more plans like this” and “the only way we are going to protect lives in our towns and villages is if we fund them properly,” he declared.

Cllr McCormack was addressing the monthly meeting of Westmeath County Council at which he received overwhelming support from fellow members present.

Cllr Paul Hogan said a speed of 107km/hour was recorded in a village with a 50km/hour zone in a recent survey. He proposed that the council write to the Department of Transport seeking funding to deal with the problem.

Cllr Tom Farrell called for a “school safety zone” at every national school, whether it is on a regional road or a small, country road. He agreed that the Ballymore scheme was a fine example of what could be done and said the council should have a specific budget every year for such work.

Chairman, Cllr Liam McDaniel, stressed that speed is an issue not just at schools, but on approach roads to every town and village. He remarked that when the M6 was built in his “neck of the woods”, overpasses were provided and the approach roads into the towns and villages were widened – Kilbeggan coming in from Clara, Tyrrellspass coming in from Daingean, and this invites speeding.

Cllr McDaniel asked that when traffic calming measures are being introduced in Tyrrellspass and Castlepollard this year, they set a template for other towns and villages and that the design take on board the views of the members.

Cllr McCormack welcomed this united approach by members. He said it was up to them to decide what level of funding to provide, depending on what is available year on year.

The meeting was told that the council has a coordinated and consistent approach to providing traffic calming measures across its towns and villages. The council will ensure that these towns and villages will be fully traffic calmed on a prioritised and sequential basis over time. The council will seek to identify external resources of funding to support this programme, it said.

Interim chief executive Barry Kehoe agreed that “some urban areas can be unpleasant because of the speed of traffic through them and this needs to be addressed”.

Roads have improved as have the cars and, in fairness to drivers, they don’t realise the speed they are doing, he said.

Mr Kehoe reminded members that new speed limits and guidelines are expected in the very near future. He said the local authority would indicate to the Department that there is no point just putting numbers on signs, they need to put measures in place to insure that the new speed limits are observed, he stated.