Council to consider proposals for 'volunteers' to grit Clare roads during frosty weather

The feasibility of a volunteer-run programme to grit roads across County Clare during frosty and adverse weather was raised at the December meeting of Clare County Council.

The queries were raised in response to a motion proposed by Fine Gael councillor Conor Ryan in which he called on the council to "revise the winter service plan to include gritting of all regional roads in the county" and to launch an "advisory campaign to promote safe driving in icy conditions."

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Independent councillor Michael Begley was first to propose the idea, asking, “can we [the council] look at a voluntary programme where locals can grit the roads while being covered by insurance?”

He said the “main barrier” stopping people from gritting roads in their own locality is the fear that they would not be insured if anything were to happen.

Cllr Begley put forward the idea as a potential solution to the issue that “all local areas have a small number of pinch points not treated under the council.”

Fine Gael councillor Pat Burke told of an area on the Clare-Galway border, near Whitegate, where there is a three kilometre stretch of regional roads that are left untreated by both County Councils.

Of the 935 kilometres of road across Clare's road network, 714 kilometres are treated by the council, leaving approximately 221 kilometres of road not gritted.

Cllr Ian Lynch spoke of a similar issue on the R487 in Loop Head, where each year it is requested to be included in Clare's winter plan, as it "causes fierce confusion when people think a road is done but it's not" and that "key routes can't be cut off" from the road network.

He said he "understands on a huge amount of these roads around the county it is difficult to resource" gritting the roads, proposing that "if we [the council] could get salt bases back into West Clare some of the farmers could do it."

Explaining that "they [the famers] are willing to do it" acknowledging that there are "issues around insurance."

Cllr Lynch explained how "when the storm came last year, we all turned to the farmers to help us out to try and get some trees and roads cleared and all this work done, so maybe, we can figure out a way of doing it when it comes to salting [the roads] as well."