Roads in “desperate state” due to forestry and wind farm companies

The road is in a desperate state,” said Cllr Padraig Fallon who asked that resurfacing works take place at Tullintowel, Drumkeerin at the latest Manorhamilton municipal district meeting.

A report by the Council's Roads office responded that “failures have developed at this location following haulage of material for forestry roads and Leitrim County Council has been liaising with the forestry company on restoration works, it is anticipated that works will be completed this summer.”

Cllr Fallon continued that there are a number of forests on the road and the “vast majority of them are private.”

He noted that there is an application for works to be carried out at “one or two points” and “they need to be reminded of their commitment to this road as well and when a weight restriction will be needed because there are artic-loads of timber travelling on it.”

Cllr Mary Bohan said a weight restriction was in place at a road “not far from there and we had trucks going in at 5 and 6am taking out huge loads so I don't know how you police that.”

She said that it was an issue with “people carrying out construction of wind farms and afforestation; there are two roads near there which are nearly impassable and in one area there seems to be an issue with fisheries so work has stopped. In the meantime, the road is in a terrible condition.”

She said that she believed those behind wind farms and afforestation “should maintain the road to make it passable; there are pot holes on both of those roads; there should be some condition built in that the road needs to be maintained during construction.”