Stark warning from engineer on the future of Waterford roads
The council say they would need a lot more funding just to keep the roads in reasonable condition. Stock image.
A senior engineer at Waterford City and County Council has warned that without more funding, the local authority will not be able to maintain the roads in future years.
During a presentation on the 2025 roads programme allocation, Gabriel Hynes told councillors at the March sitting of the Dungarvan-Lismore District Council that the council has a severe shortage of funding every year.
“Look, the bottom line is if we don’t invest in our road network properly, we are going to continue to struggle to keep our road network up to an acceptable standard.
"Either we resource it or we don’t resource it, and if we don’t you will see the consequences on the ground, and at every monthly meeting, we are going to have the same discussions about potholes and structural damage on the roads network," said Mr Hynes.
Earlier this year, the council made a bid to secure €10 million in funding to deal with storm damage.
However, it was announced at the March meeting that the council have only been allocated €2.5 million.
The total allocation for roads this year was €11.8 million, which includes strengthening works and climate adaptation funding.
But according to Mr Hynes, this isn’t even close to enough.
“So roughly between city and county, we are spending €10.5 million on strengthening.
"We need to be spending twice that annually for the next 20 years.
"So there is a shortfall there of nearly €250 million that we need to get, and we need to spend to ensure we have acceptable local and regional roads,” said Mr Hynes.
The senior engineer told councillors that they would continue to lobby the Department of Transport for more funding.
He urged the elected representatives to make their own representations to the Minister.
Some of the councillors at the meeting agreed that was the thing to do.
Cllr John Pratt said that if they don’t get on top of the damaged roads they “won’t know what the future holds”. He said there is a road in the area where he lives that is in very poor condition.
“It’s dangerous, the kids have stopped going to school on their bikes because they can’t use the road," said Cllr Pratt.
Cllr Tom Cronin urged the council to not only ask for additional funding but to put pressure on the Waterford TDs to make their own pleas in the Dáil.
“I would be pressurising ye today to make another application for funding, and I would be talking to our Minister and our super junior ministers, and I would be putting pressure on them because I feel we are only getting a fraction of what we are getting," said Cllr Cronin.
Cllr Thomas Phelan acknowledged that the council staff do their best with the “scarce resources” available to them.
While he does agree that the council should seek more funding from the government, he thinks the department needs to make allocations based on the increasing amount of severe weather events.
“Otherwise we are going to be facing worse situations over the years to keep our roads in some way decent condition,” said Cllr Phelan.
