‘Rural roads need dedicated team’ – Hearty | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

‘Rural roads need dedicated team’ – Hearty

Sinn Féin councillor Terry Hearty has called on Roads Service to use the additional funding it has been given to take on extra staff and form a team dedicated to repairing and maintaining rural roads.

pothole“I’ve been in contact with Roads Service in regards to the state of rural roads in South Armagh following the severe weather over Christmas,” he said.

“The roads in South Armagh are in a worse state than ever and while the weather has been terrible the real cause of the damage is the short sightedness of our former Regional Development Minister who refused to clean gullies and open outlets, allowing huge amounts of water to pool on the roads, causing major potholes and leaving roads extremely dirty.

“This inaction has left previously good roads damaged and made bad roads even worse,” he insisted.

“I contacted Roads Service prior to Christmas and they told me that they had sent an engineer out who had dipped potholes in several areas, such as the Dundalk and Glassdrummond Roads.

“He had reported that they were only 60mls deep and would be fine until after Christmas. Those holes are now several inches deep and two and three times the size they were.

“I would hope that our new DRD Minister Michelle McIlveen will not be carrying on with the short-sighted policies of her predecessor Danny Kennedy, who upped and left his post, abdicating his responsibilities after making a shambles of the rural roads network.

Hearty added, “I would urge the Minister to reflect on this and adopt a more sustainable approach to her duties.”

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Posted by on Jan 14 2016. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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