Belching buses don't help gourmet Glandore

CAR fumes and cake don’t mix, according to a West Cork councillor, who complained that traffic snarl-ups are wreaking havoc with Glandore’s pristine tourism image.

As a matter of urgency, Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) called for a traffic management review for Glandore.

When he raised the issue at a meeting of the Municipal District of West Cork, the councillor was quite vivid in his description of people trying to enjoy dining alfresco while an idling bus belched diesel fumes in their faces.

Aside from the tourism interests – which are considerable – he asked: ‘What would happen in the case of an emergency? What would happen if there is a fire, or a traffic accident, and the fire brigade or the ambulance needed to get through the village?’

Cllr Carroll said traffic in the village – which is perched on an incline overlooking the harbour, and is as beautiful as any destination you could hope to find in the South of France or along the Amalfi Coast – is always reduced to a single, narrow lane during the summer months. And with every available parking space from the top of the village to the bottom occupied, there is no room for manoeuvre. ‘There is nowhere for a car or – God forbid – a bus to reverse,’ he said. ‘People can’t back up and they can’t go forward.’ 

To preserve Glandore as a special attraction on the Wild Atlantic Way, Cllr Carroll said the village needs a new traffic management system, possibly a one-way system that could be implemented during the summer months.

Without it, he said, ‘you have people trying to digest their food through the fumes. It has got to the stage that the customers are complaining, and the business people are complaining too.’

The Council’s area engineer Kevin Lynch said the Council was considering creating both an inner and an outer bypass system that would allow traffic to move more freely during the peak of the tourism season. And he said a report would be presented at the next Municipal District meeting.