'Bold decisions' need to be made on traffic in Mayo's county town
Cllr Ger Deere says tackling the traffic issues in Castlebar will be one of the priorities of his term as Cathaoirleach
‘Bold decisions’ will have to be made to improve traffic congestion in Mayo's county town according to the new Cathaoirleach of the Castlebar Municipal District.
Fine Gael councillor Ger Deere was elected as the new Cathaoirleach of Castlebar Municipal District and following his election he outlined some of his aspirations for the 12 months of his term with addressing traffic congestion at the top of his agenda.
The new Cathoirleach said that bold decisions will have to be made if they are to solve traffic problems in the town.
“We wanted to make a few bold decisions regarding traffic congestion and we have to really look at that,” he said, adding that new housing development close to Garryduff will add to the already heavy traffic in the area.
“Gallows Hill is a total nightmare and has been going on for years. It's not an easy problem to solve but we have to do it because we're going to have probably 200 or 300 more houses out there in the next couple of years, which is great to see, but we have a huge problem with the Newport Road area, Garryduff, and Gallows Hill.
“We have to make bold decisions here and hope we can get through it, because we owe it to the future progress of this town. There's no point in saying that we can't do that. We have to make bold decisions, whatever that is, in consultation with engineers and residents. That's one priority that we have to sort out,” he said.
Cllr Deere praised the work of his fellow councillors saying they all work well compared to other municipal districts in the county and he wanted to continue to work with them to make Castlebar and ever 'greater town'.
The Fine Gael councillor added that improving the facilities around Lough Lannagh will be one of his priorities over the coming year and also suggested looking at creating a water park on the lake and expanding an area to cater for camper vans.
A former chairman of Castlebar Tidy Towns, Cllr Deere also called for more enforcement regarding dumping and littering around the town and for CCTV cameras to be used to catch perpetrators.
“We have to go through the CCTV and find people, it's the only way. We really need to look at that because it's destroying our town. No matter how many times we clean it up, there's no excuse for that [littering]. So that's something I'm going to try and enact,” he said.
Cllr Deere mentioned a number of projects which were taking place around the town and looked forward to more progress on other projects.