LIMERICK City and County Council is to carry out an urgent review of existing cycle lanes in Limerick City following alarming concerns raised by the fire services.
At last month’s Metropolitan District meeting, Fine Gael Councillor Dan McSweeney called for a full review on the impact of all constructed and proposed Active Travel Schemes on emergency response times to be presented to city councillors.
Cllr McSweeney told the Limerick Post this week that, since that meeting, he had sight of internal correspondence between the Active Travel Team and Fire Service and Building Control department of the Council which set serious concerns from an emergency services perspective.
“To say the least, the 10 pages of correspondence was nothing short of alarming,” Cllr McSweeney said
“One of the most alarming contents of the correspondence stated, on an internal email: ‘In conclusion, the Active Travel measures do negatively impact on our ability to turn out and will have consequences in this regard going forward. The issue and concerns were raised and in my opinion appear to have been ultimately disregarded’,” he further claimed.
“In another piece of correspondence seen, they go on to state in relation to the Fr Russell Road Scheme that ‘there appears to be no consideration of the emergency services as road users and the impact of the proposal on how emergency services would respond to an incident’.”
Cllr McSweeney also noted how the Council recently carried out some works on the Childers Road by replacing the segregation kerb with less invasive orcas to address some key concerns raised by the fire services some months ago.
Following debate in the Council chamber at last month’s meeting, it was agreed by members that a full report be furnished to the elected members on all Active Travel schemes identifying concerns from the fire service and remedies required to address these concerns.
In response to Cllr McSweeney at the December meeting of the Metropolitan District, the Council’s Active Travel Department explained that it carried out a tender process in 2022 to review projects and alignment with emergency responders.
“Our team has re-run this tender and awaits submission in January 2025. Once this report is completed and reviewed it will be shared with elected members,” the Council stated.
