Holmes concerned after NRA take-over of regional roads

Holmes concerned after NRA take-over of regional roads


Anton McNulty

A Mayo County Councillor has expressed his concern following the decision to allow the National Roads Authority to take over the maintenance and funding of regional roads as well as national roads.
Since September 1 last, the NRA took over control of the regional roads in the county from the Department of Transport and now control all major and minor roads in the county. Independent councillor, Michael Holmes explained that from past experience the NRA were not very flexible when asked to spend money on a certain stretch of road and complained that councillors would be at the mercy of the NRA.
“The Council are unclear as to how it will work and I have a real worry about it. If you take the NRA on past performance their record isn’t great because you have to play by their rules on where and how money is spent and they are in no way flexible. Prior to this we nominated roads [for maintenance] and all it had to do was go before the Council for approval and it was done and dusted. But now it will have to go before the NRA for them to agree on it.
“We had an argument last year regarding where money for the N59 at Tiernaur was to be spent and we wanted it closer to Newport but it didn’t happen. If that was a regional road we could thrash it out with the Council engineer and more than likely they would change it for you, but that is more power gone to people in Dublin,” he said.
The NRA have come under criticism from many councillors not just in Mayo regarding their policy of not allowing planning permission for houses which have a new access route going onto national roads. Cllr Holmes said that he was concerned that they will start interfering in planning applications along regional roads.
“I have a real worry that they will adopt the same attitude along the regional roads. They haven’t as of yet but the Council have given no guarantees they won’t in the future. With any planning application in Achill, the planning authority don’t have to notify the NRA because it has nothing to do with them but we don’t know as of now if that will be the case.
“It is taking power away from the local authority and the county councillors. We will be totally at the mercy of the NRA regarding the money we get and the way we spend it. We will be continuously looking over our shoulder,” concluded Cllr Holmes.