Plans for long awaited second entrance to Kildare education campus
Schools and residents share the same route
Plans are being made for a long awaited second entrance to the Piper’s Hill education campus at Kilcullen Road, Naas, - with work to start in May.
There is only one way into the site which is home to three schools, the biggest of which is the second level Piper’s Hill College - the town’s largest coeducational school.
It is also the way in for the residents living in the adjacent housing developments.
The nearby Killashee multi denominational national school is not part of the campus but it also attracts some traffic to the area.
There have been calls for an alternative access dating back well over five years.
Fine Gael councillor Evie Sammon, who's also a member of the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board, which manages the school, told a Naas Municipal District meeting that the KWETB has undertaken a traffic study.
She added this study has been broken down into short, medium and long term solutions.
Funding has been approved for the short and medium term works and contract documents are being worked on.
She said: “The estimated due date for those works is May.” There is a need for an entrance which will accommodate school buses.
“I share the frustration at the situation as progress has been at a snail’s pace.”
Cllr Sammon said a lot of congestion in the area is caused by the need for buses to turn.
She also said that more students are walking or cycling to school, notably PHC students but many primary children are driven to the campus and collected every day.
Cllr Carmel Kelly told the meeting that the entrance issue is “not a Kildare County Council problem.”
However, a KWETB official Joe Kelly appeared to blame KCC at a KWETB meeting three years ago saying that the KWETB “is not responsible for traffic on the Kilcullen Road.”