New Knockalisheen To Coonagh Dual Carriageway Open From Monday

0:00I think this product is really significant for people in Southeast Claire, in particular, people living in the Mealic area. Because so many residents, as you know, from the Southeast Claire area, they travel into Limerick City every day for work, for schools, services, for university as well. So this new dual carriageway and the Moirass link road in particular, I'm hoping will improve access into the north side of Limerick and give better connectivity into the city centre. It definitely provides better connection between Claire and the north side suburbs, like Validenti and like Moirass as well. And we're hoping as well that we should see a massive reduction in bottlenecks around the Crackle Road area and surrounding routes, especially at those peak travel times and people are going to and from work and to and from school and university as well. So I suppose for the people in Mealic in particular, both definitely the wider area of Southeast Claire and obviously the north side of Limerick City as well. It's really about making that daily journey into the city a little bit easier and more reliable as well in terms of not fearing getting caught in massive traffic queues any longer. So that's the hope. And

1:03I think that we should see that happen over the next few weeks now that the dual carriageway portion is opening. The Inuclecine Road will be closed for the duration of the work to allow them to take place. Will that have a negative impact on people in the area, Rachel, or will the diversions be sufficient to allow them to go about their business? Look, I think anytime that there's a full closure of any road, I think it can lead to disruptions, especially for the people that are living along the Nuclecine Road. And it will mean temporary disruptions that will mean temporary diversions. Traffic will be re-rooted through the new Moirassling Road. That's the plan at the moment. But the reason the new road is opening now is so that there is an alternative route available while the bridge is rebuilt. And I think long-term having this short-term disruption will actually reap a much bigger benefit for the people living in the Moirassling area and even the people living around the Nuclecine Road, because there's a lot of people coming in and out to Shannon back to Limerick that would use that road as kind of a ratter on the peak travel

2:05times. And they're our safety concerns around that as well. So it is unfortunate that there's any disruption at all, but I will say a massive credit to the community and to some of my council colleagues and to Karl Kroes as well. A couple of months ago it was looking like there would be a full closure for a long period of time for a period of a couple of months, originally almost a year. It was originally supposed to be closed for that Nuclecine Road and fair to use to the community. Everyone came out and drove and engaged with the developers and engaged with Limerick City and County Council who are the lead authority on this project. And that didn't end up happening. And that is really a testament to the community involvement and engagement that happened at that time. So it's a shorter disruption now, obviously there will be some negative impacts on the people living in the area, but in the long term it is going to alleviate a lot of the congestion that we see in a lot of the road concerns that we have on a daily basis. Just finally on this, we've been talking about this project for quite a while. Rachel, are you fairly satisfied with the pace that it's moving

3:06ash or could that possibly have been expedited at some point? I think historically I think it could have moved faster. I think that since the new developer came on board, I think that the things have moved at a relatively good pace. I think they gave a kind of 12-month timeline for this section of the dual carriageway to be finished and they did adhere to that for the most part. Obviously there was a little delay in actually getting it opened, but I think it's moved very swiftly and very positively since that new developer came on board. It could have happened faster going back a couple of years, absolutely, and obviously we can forget as well that a really critical piece of infrastructure for South East Claire generally, and even parts of East Claire will be phase two of that Northern distributor road, which unfortunately is off the table at the minute, but there's a huge appetite there from the locality to see that progress in the future. I know there's a political appetite in terms of the local representatives, so myself and my council colleagues and our clearer rock dust reps as well. There is a huge political appetite in addition

4:09to a community and a local appetite to see that phase two progressed. So hopefully in the coming years we will actually see that progress, and I think that's a really key piece of infrastructure for us in South East Claire to really alleviate some of the congestion that we have, and also to open up new opportunities economically and in terms of housing for that area and Claire as well. So hopefully we see that to get off the ground soon.