Transport Minister Danny Kennedy has commended roads staff and contractors for the successful completion of road schemes in 2014/2015 which accounted for £12.2million investment in the roads infrastructure in the Newry, Mourne and Down council area.
The Minister also said that his Department was facing £60million of cuts in 2015/16, more than half of which will fall to TransportNI, which is having a significant impact on services in particular maintenance activities in all areas.
The Minister added: “As it stands, my budget does not provide for sufficient service provision in areas such as repair of potholes, street lights and traffic signals and other measures such as gully emptying and grass cutting at junctions. As a result, my Department has no option other than to cut back on the routine maintenance of the network. There will be no funding available for external contractors to carry out routine road maintenance, however, the Departments’ internal workforce will be providing a skeleton service for the first part of the year, at least.
“Road inspections will currently continue as normal, however, only the highest priority potholes will be repaired. Gully emptying and grass cutting services will be provided on a reduced scale. There will be limited weed control, maintenance of white lines and only one quarter of the required resource available to repair street lighting outages. Contractors will still be employed to carry out electrical inspection and testing of street lights and the repair of hazardous electrical and structural defects.
“I will be making a strong bid for resource funding in monitoring rounds to return routine maintenance services to normal levels.
“However, despite the cuts, a wide range of road improvement and maintenance schemes are planned or already complete in the Newry, Mourne and Down council area.
“The impact of current resource budget pressures on my Department is affecting routine maintenance of the road network; however capital budgets are less affected. Departmental officials will continue to develop resurfacing and traffic management schemes, to enhance safety, to improve traffic flow and provide measures for pedestrians and cyclists.”
Southern Division Manager, Simon Richardson, was set to outline a number of highlights in the work of the DRD in the South Down area covering improvement and maintenance schemes that were completed in 2014/15.
However, the meeting with Newry Mourne and Down District Council was pulled until a further date as several councillors felt that there was too much information to be presented and that if all 41 councillors wanted to speak, it could have been problematic. The session was postponed until a later council meeting. However, he said speaking on specific developments: “I am pleased to note that sightline and junction improvement schemes completed include B8 Hilltown Road, Mayobridge (Murphy’s Corner); Loughinisland Road with the Tareesh Lane, Annacloy and the Magherhamlet Road with the Dunmore Road, Spa.
“Other significant areas of work completed by the Division include a bridge replacement scheme at Ballyfannaghan Bridge, Cullyhanna as well as the provision of vehicle restraint system on the Flagstaff Road, Newry. The safer routes to school initiative delivered enhanced high profile flashing amber light signs on approaches to St Patrick’s Primary School, Mayobridge; Windsor Hill Primary School, Newry and Annesborough Integrated Primary School.
“Approximately 99 lane kilometres of carriageway was resurfaced in 2014/15 at locations including A2 Newry Road, Kilkeel; A21 Main Street, Saintfield; A21 Saintfield Road, Ballynahinch; A25 Newtown Road, Belleek; A25 Castlewellan Road, Rathfriland and A27 Tandragee Road, Newry.”
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