Ardmore Road Residents Association: 'council has not engaged with us on works'

Statement from Ardmore Road Residents Association, March 29, 2021 in response to funding announcement

The Ardmore Road Residents Association welcomes the funding that has been allocated for works on the road; however we are extremely disappointed that Westmeath County Council has not adequately engaged with the local community about works which will utterly transform both the road and the community.

It is a shame that in an era when communication with communities is so easy and can be done in so many forms that Westmeath County Council has seen fit to keep our local community in the dark.

Community engagement can build great projects from the ground up, and the county can reap the benefit of ‘the bigger picture’. We are saddened that this was not the case with some of these plans, especially considering the funding allocated to them.

The long sought-after improvements for Saunders Bridge, which we have been fighting for for more than 20 years, are especially welcome. This is in no small part thanks to the campaign undertaken by the Saunders Bridge Action Group, established after a cluster of several accidents and near misses involving vehicles and pedestrians on this lethal bridge.

A resulting video on Mullingar News and Views and associated coverage in local newspapers and radio finally saw Westmeath County Council grant residents a meeting – the only such meeting in 20 years.

That a new footbridge will be built alongside this bridge is welcome news for locals, walkers, joggers and, especially parents of students attending Holy Family NS.

We urge the council to engage with the wider local community about these works. We also hope the final bridge plan (which we were not privy to) will incorporate canal access and adequate road safety to Millmount and Ballinderry.

€2million seems an extraordinary amount for footpath and cycleways along the road, and anything that will improve road safety has to be welcomed; however, we have grave fears about the designs passed by the council and the lack of engagement with residents.

None took place, although the Westmeath Examiner reported on 23/02/21 that a council official said they had.

The entire process surrounding these works has been flawed from the start and handled poorly by Westmeath County Council. The plans we saw were vague at best, and many houses are set to lose ground. No communication about the loss of gardens ever took place, despite drawings indicating many residents would lose ground.

The council did not take on decades of road and pedestrian safety concerns from the local community who live on, or use the road. Glaring road safety problems have not been factored into the plans.

Many residents made submissions to the council on these works, only to see over 90% of the issues raised in these submissions ignored and also, sadly, by public representatives who voted on them.

At a council meeting on February 22 the chief executive, Pat Gallagher, and directors of service, Martin Murray and Pat Keating, promised councillors they would engage with local residents.

To date, no such engagement has taken place. The local community found out about the €2.5m funding from Deputy Peter Burke's Facebook page.

When he was a councillor, Deputy Burke fought hard for residents when Holy Family NS was to be relocated here, and many of our concerns were factored in to the resulting plans.

We want to thank him for his hard work representing residents on the road for over a decade. Other councillors have also assisted us over the years. They know who they are.