Closed road adds 100km a week to school trips

A WEST Cork councillor has called for a road that provides access to Knockskeagh School in Clonakilty to be reopened as a matter of urgency.

Cllr Paul Hayes (Ind) raised the issue at a meeting of the West Cork Municipal District in Dunmanway recently.

He welcomed a senior engineer’s reassurance that the reopening of the road – which has been closed since July 15th last due to the need to replace a culvert between Knockskeagh and Ballinascarthy – has been included in the September programme of works.

Cllr Hayes said he had received many complaints from residents affected by the closure. One person said: ‘This road is a very busy road to Knockskeagh NS and is used by the locals and residents of Dromgarriffe and Beanhill to access the school.’

‘Some people,’ according to one resident, ‘have to do a full loop, which adds 5km each way to the journey, which adds up to 10km per trip, twice a day for dropping and collecting, so that’s 20km per day or 100km every  week just to drop the kids to school.’

Another person pointed out that the road is on a secondary school bus route, and many have already paid the yearly fee for a bus that cannot travel down the road.

Another complaint dealt with the issue of refuse collection. A large waste collection company has informed some residents that their refuse would no longer be collected because the trucks cannot turn on the road.

One resident with a child still in nappies said: ‘This is of particular concern to us because we have had no waste collection for eight weeks.’

Cllr Hayes said it was time for the Council to ‘expedite the work because the residents really can’t wait until the end of September, or October, for work to start because it has been closed for seven weeks already.’