THE road serving Sheep’s Head Peninsula must be “given priority” in next year’s road marking programme, a meeting heard.

The call was made by Cllr Finbarr Harrington, who raised the issue at a meeting of West Cork Municipal District.

He said the road from Durrus, through Kilcrohane, and onwards to the end of the Sheep’s Head Peninsula gets very busy during the summer due to the “large influx of tourists” along the Wild Atlantic Way.

Cllr Harrington added that the road is particularly susceptible to fog which leads to very poor visibility, making clear road markings even more important.

Kevin Lynch, Cork County Council executive engineer, said: “Historically this road has not had road markings.

The narrow width of the road in places precludes the use of centre lining.”

He added that to line the 25km stretch of road would exceed the council’s annual budget for the whole district for many years.

Cllr Alan Dromey (FF) said that he has family in the area so knows the difficulties of navigating the road first-hand.

He said there have been times he “could not see where the road was” on dark evenings, and asked for yellow lines or catseyes to be placed along the route where the it was too narrow for a centre line.

Cllr Danny Collins (Ind Ire) suggested that maybe it was time to buy a road marking machine for council use.

He proposed that the cost could be shared between the council and Kerry County Council.

Cllr Daniel Sexton (Inde Ire) agreed, suggesting it would reduce the costs if the council were running the operation itself.

He proposed the matter be brought before the council’s Director of Roads, Transportation and Area Services Padraig Barrett, which his fellow councillors supported.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.