Closure of bridge and summer roadworks in east Donegal labelled ‘a complete farce’

A local Councillor has labelled the closure of a bridge and planned Summer roadworks in the east of the county as a "complete farce."

Fianna Fail Councillor Patrick McGowan made the comments at this week's Lifford Stranorlar Municipal District meeting.

The sudden closure of the Dromore footbridge in Killygordon in January came after an engineer's report and assessment carried out by Donegal County Council deemed it to be unsafe.

However, Cllr McGowan says that locals and elected representatives have been left in the dark as to the exact reason why the bridge was deemed to be structurally unsound.

"This is an ongoing joke, a complete farce," he told the meeting.

"Someone walks down, takes a look into the river, and says 'that bridge is not safe' and then closes it. We haven't been told why."

"Somebody has to wait until the water (level is lower) to go down and look at what's wrong, so do we not know already what's wrong?"

"To me it's a drastic step to go out and close a bridge particularly now when we're coming into the Summertime."

Cllr McGowan also connected the impact of that footbridge closure to upcoming traffic works in the Twin Towns.

A stop/go system is set to be put in place in Ballybofey and Stranorlar from June to the end of the year to facilitate roadworks, a move which Cllr McGowan says will only put even more strain on secondary routes like the roads through Killygordon.

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"We're moving fast to June, where basically there's going to be a stop/go in Ballybofey and Stranorlar from June right through to Christmas. All the side roads that are being used at the moment, the amount of lorries and cars - they're going to be inundated from June up to Christmas."

"They'll be trying to come down to Killygordon and (they'll be) closing the bridge there. At the moment, that bridge is effectively closed, with one-way traffic with temporary traffic lights that break every two or three days."

"Can we ask today (for) the name of the person who carried out the report, what they (saw), what they did and why management doing nothing about it?"

"It's just totally unacceptable. This would not happen anywhere else. I'd like to see them trying that in the middle of Letterkenny or something like that, they just wouldn't get away with it."