Greenway in West Limerick partly closes as €5m upgrade starts

A LARGE section of the Great Southern Greenway closed for maintenance this week as €5m worth of improvements swung into action.

But local councillor Stephen Keary has criticised the local authority for keeping members out of the loop on the works, saying they have missed a “golden opportunity” accusing council officials of acting like a “dictatorship” over the scheme.

A 5km section between Ardagh’s station house and Newcastle West is to be closed off until October 23.

But Fine Gael councillor Keary says he and others have not been consulted in the upgrade.

Cllr Kearym believes that with his and the other councillors’ input, more could have been done to help the village of Ardagh.

He said: “I appreciate the amount of work being done, but as an aside to that, a golden opportunity has been missed. You have the village of Ardagh which is stymied from growth as it does not have an adequate sewage treatment system which can take extra building. You had an opportunity to fit a pump main from Ardagh to Rathkeale on the greenway as part of that project. A small bit of joined up thinking and a bit of foresight would have allowed that. It's a pity a bit of brains was not put into the planning.”

”As a councillor, I've been left totally in the dark and totally excluded from having any positive input I wanted to make to it,” he added.

Director Gordon Daly said the council’s upgrade works to the trail will focus on surfacing, farm crossings, drainage gates and other works. Further works will look at access point upgrades and cattle underpasses.