COMPLAINTS about access to Skibbereen Community Hospital being disrupted for six months instead of four were raised at a meeting of the Western Division of Cork County Council.

Prohibiting access to the hospital via Mill Road from July 21st to November 21st was agreed so that a contractor could remove and replace two old stone culverts beneath the road surface.

Local access at either side of the culvert crossings was provided, while other motorists were directed to take a lengthy detour via the Marsh Road and Ballyhilty before doubling back to the hospital grounds.

When Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) complained about the works dragging on. Local authority engineer, Padraig Barrett, reminded him that these works relate to the town’s flood relief scheme, which is a matter for the county engineer, and not the local authority’s road directorate.

Skibbereen’s €37.9m flood relief works were substantially completed in June 2019, but the issue at Mill Road was one of three projects that were peripheral to the overall scheme. 

Cllr Carroll pointed out that the contractor had opened one lane at Mill Road recently, but the workers are due back for another month in January.

He said he was told incessant rainfall in recent months was being blamed for the delay, but he claimed more work should have been done at the start of the project when the weather was excellent.

‘People are having to go all over the country to get to the hospital and at one stage Ballyhilty was flooded, which made access impossible,’ Cllr Carroll said.

He asked council officials: ‘What happens when a contractor doesn’t live up to what was expected, can the council come back on these people?’

Cllr Carroll listed other, more recent complaints, such as the stop-go traffic light system as being ‘red full-time,’ and residents being subjected to the sound of ‘pumps going 24/7’ which he described as ‘a disgrace’.

The other two projects that need to be completed as part of Skibbereen’s flood defences include the upgrading, or replacement, of culverts at Cork Road; and a long-term remedy for run-off surface water at The Cutting, neither having been part of the original major infrastructural scheme.

Previously, the appearance of surface water, ponding on the Mill Road after heavy rain, led public representatives to raise concerns about the effectiveness of the town’s flood relief system.

The engineers explained that the problem specifically related to the two old stone culverts that needed to be excavated and replaced.

Council official Michael Lynch acknowledged Cllr Carroll’s complaints about the delay in completing the project saying: ‘Suffice to say it has gone on longer than intended.’ And he added: ‘There will be lessons learned.’

Cllr Carroll said: ‘There is a lot of people who not only have been discommoded but are very angry about this.’

Fine Gael Cllr Brendan McCarthy also complained about the delay saying: ‘The detour for some homeowners in the area is an awful journey,’ he added. ‘Instead of driving 100 yards home, they have to go on a 10, or 15, minute drive.’