Council urged to delay resurfacing work until after wind turbines travel on Tipperary road

Tipperary County Council has been urged to hold off on carrying out a €357,840 road resurfacing project near Ballingarry until the transportation of giant turbines to a wind farm development in the area is complete.

Cathaoirleach of Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District Cllr Mark Fitzgerald has issued the appeal to Council management to delay the road improvement project on a section of the R691 at Harleypark, Ballingarry until the turbines have passed through. The project is due to start soon.

He made the call at Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District’s monthly meeting in Carrick-on-Suir Town Hall which heard that a number of bends are being temporarily removed from the road to facilitate the transportation of the turbines. The bends are being removed by the wind farm company in consultation with local landowners.

Cllr Fitzgerald from Cloneen suggested to District Engineer Denis Power that it would be better for the Council not to resurface this section of the Cashel to Kilkenny road until the heavy machinery transporting the turbines has passed along the route.

He feared the vehicles would damage a new road surface.

“Why would we put down a new road surface for them to damage? I think it should be pushed down the road a small bit,” he argued.

The Fine Gael councillor pointed out that delaying the resurfacing part of the project was raised with him a number of times by constituents.

It was a “common sense point of view”, he argued and noted that €357,840 was a lot to invest for the road to end up damaged.

Labour Cllr Michael ‘Chicken’ Brennan, who first raised the project with Council management, asked that the Council permanently remove some of those bends on the road.

District Engineer Denis Power said the Council would have a look at Cllr Brennan’s request but cautioned that he didn’t want to create a stretch of road so straight that motorists just flew along it. The Council would also require funding to purchase the land, he pointed out .

Cllr Power promised to look into Cllr Fitzgerald’s proposal to delay the resurfacing and said he would liaise with the wind farm company to find out when the turbines are to be transported.

Cllr Fitzgerald understood the turbines will be transported to the wind farm site soon but Mr Power said it may be a case that more turbines will be transported along it next year.

He told The Nationalist the Council will have to do the road works by the end of this year and couldn’t delay it further as it could lose the funding for the project.

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