East Link Road ‘not at detailed design stage’, council told
By Rebekah O'Reilly
The planned Athlone East Link Road is not at detailed design stage members of the Athlone Moate Municipal District heard at a recent meeting.
The major new eastern relief road in Athlone received key Government approval on Wednesday, November 26. The 3km route will link the Ballymahon Road (N55), near the junction with the Ballymore/Mullingar road, to the M6 roundabout at Junction 8.
The scheme is designed to relieve congestion in Athlone town centre by diverting through traffic, while also supporting improved accessibility and safety for active travel.
Members tabled the issue at the December sitting of the municipal district noting that the plan had been shared with the media before it had been brought before the council chamber.
"My understanding is that the work suggested on the East Link Road has a lot of hoops to jump through. It's entirely a study area at present, it wouldn't be at the stage of detailed design at all yet," said District Engineer Willie Ryan.
"It's just in the programme for Government, it could be a long way to detailed design."
District Manager Jackie Finney added: "I will seek a programme from the Director of Transportation, to get an idea of when it's likely that we'll see a detailed design for the link road."
"Locals are under the impression that work on this East Link Road is set to start early in the new year," said Cllr Frankie Keena, while Cllr Paul Hogan said there was confusion among landowners over the route of the new road.
"From their perspective, a detailed design is after being approved, and this is after getting government approval. They're calling us and they want to know where it's going and when it's going in.
"We had our local Minister in the media last week presenting a map, and my understanding from that interview was that it had gone a stage further. It's a very serious issue, and we need answers. I would also suggest we write to the Minister for the OPW, as he seems to have some information that he hasn't presented to us."
Cllr Vinny McCormack said: "We all saw that in the media with great interest last week, I would suggest that we write to the Minister for Transport looking for a timeframe on this particular project, because there was no clear timeframe given in the report."