Louth councillors seek traffic calming measures at Bush Post Primary School

Cllr Antóin Watters raised the issue of road safety at Bush Post Primary School in Cooley at the Dundalk Municipal District October meeting and asked Louth County Council for its help in providing a solution.

At the October meeting, Cllr Watters said that the school was suffering from its own success, with over 780 students now attending the secondary school, and that there is a “huge problem at drop off and collection”, in terms of road safety. Cllr Watters asked the local authority to support him, and “sit down with all the stakeholders”, including councillors, the LMETB, and the Council itself, to see what potential funding avenues there may be available, to provide traffic calming/safety measures at the school.

“At the minute we're saying yes there is a problem, but we can't really do anything about it”, Cllr Watters told the meeting, and acknowledging the work that has been done there to date, including road markings, added, “it's great but its not helping the problem.”

The north Louth councillor said it would need buy in from the local community, and suggested a one way system at pick up and drop off times. He added that he was there at collection times and voiced his concerns at the heavy vehicles that were passing the school at the time.

“I just think we all need to sit down, the Principal is fully on board with it”, and “we need to do something on it”, he commented, before further adding that he works in Lordship and “I hear the sirens going past every week, there's more and more accidents on this road. Really, this junction is one of the worst.”

In repsonse the meeting heard from Senior Executive Engineer, Mr Paddy Connolly, who said that he checked the layout of the school and that more parking was being provided at drop off/collection times at the school. He added that the situation at the school is exacerbated by the construction that is going on at the school at present. “We are aware of isssues at the junction but not fully sure how they could get funding to address that”, he added.

Cllr Marianne Butler agreed with Cllr Watters' comments and said that something had to be done, having been at a Board of Management meeting there the previous week. Cllr Butler said that there is a plan for a drop off that may work, “but you're still going to have a load of people crossing that big main road” at drop off/collection times.

“You're putting a load of teenagers out on what is a really busy road”, she said, adding “we need to look at this and get some traffic calming on the main road, even temporarily when the schools are coming in and coming out”, and saying that a long term solution would need to be found.

Cllr John Reilly also agreed with Cllr Watters comments, saying that he was there at school closing time on the previous Friday and there was “ absolute chaos. Cllr Reilly said that he had children at the school himself a number of years ago and the Principal at the time introduced a one way system. "Its not going to cure everything but worth giving a try, it worked well the last time”, Cllr Reilly added.