Athlone motorists in the dark as traffic lights fail

Traffic lights governing Athlone"s key road-traffic junction will continue to out of operations for a number of days as the maintenance company responsible for their upkeep attempts to source the required component from the UK, Athlone Town Council has admitted. Athlone Town Clerk John Walsh told the Westmeath Independent that there was no guarantee as to when the lights at the Irishtown/John Broderick Street junction, which first broke down almost a week ago last Wednesday night, would be functional again. Members of the public have voiced concerns that the week-long absence of traffic lights in Irishtown has created a potentially dangerous traffic hazard. 'The controller in the lights has malfunctioned, as they do from time to time unfortunately, and the maintenance company has had to try and source one in England as they could not locate one here. 'We"re obviously concerned about it ourselves and we contacted the maintenance company immediately when we heard about it on Thursday. They themselves have been doing everything in their power to fix the problem as quickly as possible,' he said. Mr Walsh, however, said that he could give no fixed date as to when the problem would be rectified. 'It will be done as soon as they can, that"s all that I can say. It"s obviously a major junction in the town and we want the situation rectified,' he added. The Westmeath Independent could also find no signs alerting members of the public as to the traffic light malfunction anywhere on the street. David Fitzgerald of Athlone"s Church Street Traders stated that he had heard a number of complaints from the public regarding Athlone"s traffic lights in recent weeks.. 'It goes to show again that Athlone is not ready for a one-way system when we don"t have the proper infrastructure in place to ensure it is run properly. As traders here we"re the same as the public in our concerns about the traffic light situation,' he added.