“Dismay that the route would cut through the village of Parteen and divide the community.”
MORE than 200 residents of Parteen, Ardnacrusha and Clonlara packed a public meeting this week to lay plans for a campaign of opposition to the emerging preferred route for the Limerick Northern Distributor road. The meeting was attended by all councillors from the Killaloe electoral area as well as Deputies Willie O’Dea, Michael McNamara and Kieran O’Donnell.
“All of them expressed their frustration and surprise that the report prepared by Roughan O’Donovan has not been made available to anyone other than the civil servants in Clare County Council,” a spokesman for the newly formed Parteen Environmental group told the Limerick Post.
One of the key demands from the meeting was to push back the deadline for the consultation phase past February 16.
“There was consensus that this was too short a period of time to be fair to the residents, while the council has had an essentially limitless amount of time to prepare their report and study the route options”, the spokesman said.
Several public representatives pledged to help residents gain access to the report and extend the deadline.
People attending the meeting expressed dismay and disbelief that the route chosen would cut through the village of Parteen and divide the community. Further on down towards Clonlara, residents of that community said, the route will cross a flood plain which has flooded very seriously on a number of occasions in the last few years and has been under water regularly in the last 40 years.
Pointing to the underperformance of the Limerick tunnel, Deputy O’Dea said that any capital spend of this nature would have to be highly justified and to base such justification on a study and a report which no one outside the Roads Department of Clare County Council has seen, is not realistic
A number of residents have now formed a steering group and will hold a protest march on February 11, starting at 10am through the village of Parteen.
“We’re asking everyone concerned or affected and those in neighbouring communities to come out and show their support and solidarity”, the spokesman said.
The primary concerns of the residents are the flooding issue in Clonlara, the splitting of Parteen village and the environmental impact on a semi-rural community.
