Newbury gate issue persists

The solution put in place to resolve an issue to the rear of the Newbury Hotel Mullingar Is not working, local councillor Andrew Duncan has claimed.

At April’s meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad (MKMD), Cllr Duncan asked that the district have staff paint a junction box across the entire strip of road to facilitate cars entering and exiting the rear of the Newbury Hotel car park.

The written reply supplied by the district stated that the yellow box that has already been provided at that location is satisfactory and there are no plans to extend it.

Cllr Duncan reminded officials that this was the fourth time he had raised the issue, and he insisted that the solution currently in place is not adequate.

Because the yellow box does not extend far enough, traffic exiting and entering the Newbury gets stuck due to traffic build-ups – and the Newbury traffic can then itself wind up exacerbating the problems, he explained.

Director of services, Deirdre Reilly said staff would review the issue, but she could give no guarantee that their recommendation would change.

Surface dressing

A request that surface repairs be made to Road L5024 from Exit 14 up to Mullingar Pewter café was made at the same meeting by Cllr Duncan, but the response from the MDMK was that the road is not on the 2021 Restoration or Surface Dressing programme.

However, the response continued, some minor repairs had been carried out at that location last week.

In reaction, Cllr Duncan remarked that there were quite significant repairs required and he asked, in that context, that it be looked at again. Director of Services Deirdre Reilly undertook to keep the road under review.