Kilkenny council official offers update on traffic situation near new CBS site
Read more in this week's edition of the Kilkenny People
For the past number of months, concerns and local reservations have been expressed over potential traffic congestion difficulties in the Dunningstown, Granges and Freshford Road areas of Kilkenny City following the opening of the new CBS Kilkenny (Christian Brothers College).
But a week into the new school term, have the fears expressed by many become reality?
Speaking to Kilkenny Live, Director of Services with Kilkenny County Council, Tim Butler, acknowledged there was always going to be 'a level of inconvenience' but the council are reasonably satisfied so far but did admit it was too early to come to any firm conclusions.
"There is a concentration of schools in the area and we would have anticipated that there would be difficulties at the start but what we’re also conscience of is that it’ll settle down after a few weeks so it would be too quick to make any decisions or make any assumptions," he said.
Mr Butler also acknowledged some minor improvements may need to be implemented in the coming months.
"We have an active travel team who are looking at doing different improvements all the time and we recognise that the Dean Street roundabout isn’t that friendly for people to cross either with a bike or walking so we will be looking at that next year and we’ll be looking at a section out towards the county hospital to try and improve that as well as to make it safer for people to use alternative methods to get to the schools," he added.
"We’ll be monitoring, we won’t be making any knee-jerk reactions and we’ll stay in contact with the schools and the gardaí just to see whether or not there’s anything we can do to make improvements in time," Mr Butler continued.
Read more in this week's edition of the Kilkenny People