Council moves to advance N55 revamp with bypasses
Westmeath County Council has opted to try and progress the N55 Athlone to Ballymahon road project “incrementally” starting with the bypassing of Ballykeeran and Glasson villages.
The local authority signalled the shift towards a section by section approach in July, when a management report distributed prior to that month's Westmeath County Council meeting said: "Due to funding difficulties, it has been decided to try and advance the project incrementally starting with Ballykeeran and then Glasson. TII approval has been sought to move to Phase 3 (design and environmental evaluation) in respect of these two bypasses."
Explaining the change in approach, Donal O' Donoghue, Senior Executive Engineer in Westmeath National Roads Office, stated: “Our fear is that if we continue with the full Athlone to Ballymahon (road), it's a major scheme, close to €100 million.... we've seen a lot of the major schemes around the country this year and last year which were suspended due to the different priorities of government at the moment.”
Minister Eamon Ryan set out during a visit to Athlone earlier this year that his preference was for road schemes promoting the Towns First policy or projects bypassing towns or villages or those underlining climate action.
“The likes of the Ballykeeran bypass and Glasson bypass would be higher priorities for the government,” outlined Mr O' Donoghue, and therefore, hopefully, being smaller and costing less would have a better chance of securing funding.
He pointed to the likes of the N52 from Tyrrellspass to Devlin which was advanced incrementally in recent years and it worked successfully.
By September or October, Mr O'Donoghue is expected to have a “clear direction” from TII where the scheme is going.
“The Ballykeeran bypass would be 2.7km in length and the Glasson bypass would be another two kilometres. They would go into a different funding category for TII for minor schemes,” he explained, and while even with TII approval, the design and environmental work in phase 3 could take several years to complete, the benefits down the tracks would be massive for both villages.
At the end of May, the Preferred Route Corridor (PRC) for the new N55 was announced, and it included two modifications between Glasson and Tubberclair and between The Pigeons and Tang in the published Option Selection report for the upgrade of the 17km stretch which will bypass Ballykeeran, Tubberclair, Glasson, and Tang, incorporating portions of the existing route, before joining up with the N55 just south of Ballymahon.
“Our big thing is after getting a route selection that it doesn't sit on shelf for ten or 15 years. Then somebody comes back and says you're going to relook at all of that (the whole scheme) again,” the engineer added. “We're looking at the Ballykeeran bypass for the last 30/40 years, and the Glasson bypass, so why not go with this opportunity just to keep it going.
"We're all well aware of the alignment in Ballykeeran and if we could get a bypass and take all HGVs out of the village and let it develop on its own it would have huge benefits.”
He predicted that this would allow the villages “come into their own” and lots of facilities there like the lake, viewpoints, GAA clubs could be connected via cycle or footpath routes.
While well aware that certain landowners are going to be “badly affected”, he underlined that they intend to do their utmost to keep that as low as possible.
Should Ballykeeran and Glasson move forward to design and then construction, they would line up the next piece of the scheme to come afterwards to take advantage of any funding opportunities.