Concerns about roads funding for Galway county

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Galway Daily news Galway allocated over €42 million for local and regional roads

Concerns have been expressed about the ways in which funding is allocated for the maintenance of roads in Galway County.

Athenry area County Councillor James Charity said after the recent budget that he has “serious concerns” about the way in which funding is allocated for roads maintenance in the county.

He said that the roads “which does not take account of population or traffic congestion but rather kilometre of road per area” is unlikely to fly in many areas.

That said the Independent Councillor said that he was happy with the adoption of a budget which sees a 10 percent overall increase in funding for the Athenry-Oranmore area next year.

“As the first budget for Athenry-Oranmore with Independents as part of the controlling group, the increases are most welcome and I particularly note that a large increase of 75% on regional road surfacing will be seen in 2020.”

“An additional 45% increase will be spent on regional road surface dressing, while a 26% increase in the general maintenance of local roads has been approved.”

“Overall roads funding for Athenry-Oranmore is up by approximately 13% for 2020, all of which has been achieved without any of the property tax increases that were the hallmark of the previous administration.”

Councillor Charity added that he ha “serious concerns” about the mechanism of allocating roads funds in a way that that doesn’t take population into consideration.

“Population or traffic congestion but rather kilometre of road per area, and ultimately the Department will have to introduce a policy directing Councils to address this as it is unlikely Councillors from any of the other Municipal Districts will vote in favour of a fair distribution which reduces allocations to their own areas.”

“Turkeys voting for Christmas comes to mind. I am writing directly to the Department to request they implement a policy direction to local authorities in this regard.”