Cork councillor suffers fall on uneven city footpath

A CORK city councillor, who last week took a fall at a section of uneven pavement, has called on central government to allocate funding to local authorities to carry out footpath maintenance and repair works.

Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan was walking along Wellington Road last week when he tripped and fell on pavement which he said was pushed up by tree roots.

“I hit the ground and I damaged my spectacles, scraped my left hand and bumped my eye then off the pavement,” Mr Tynan told The Echo.

The North East Ward councillor said he was winded and bleeding from the fall and was assisted by people who had witnessed the incident. After catching his breath, Mr Tynan walked to the Mercy University Hospital where he said he was seen to swiftly.

Mr Tynan said he is not the first person to have tripped on a section of broken or uneven footpath in the city.

A lengthy discussion on footpath conditions took place at the latest city council meeting this week. It followed a motion tabled by Labour Party councillor John Maher calling on the council to carry out an audit of all footpaths across the city and to prepare a report of how much it would cost to reinstate and repair all damaged footpaths. Mr Maher said the council should apply to central government to fund such works.

In a report, the council’s director of services in its roads and environment operations directorate, David Joyce, said that Cork City Council has a record of footpath defects gathered from numerous sources.

Funding for footpath maintenance and repairs, he said, comes from the council’s own resources, as allocated by elected members through the annual budget process.

“When allocating resources for the annual footpath renewal contract, the record of footpath defects is used to identify and locate the worst sections of footpaths for inclusion in the contract.

“We are confident that this results in the worst condition footpaths, at a given time, being repaired first. In addition to the annual footpath contract, the Roads Operations Division deploys our outdoors crews to carry out localised repairs on an emergency basis, where and when needed,” he added.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr Joyce said that while the National Transport Authority (NTA) “fund a substantial amount of footpaths across the city”, that funding is allocated to the provision of new footpaths and the maintenance of existing footpaths is “solely the remit of local authority to fund”.

Mr Joyce said that €200,000 a year is typically assigned for footpath repair works in the council’s annual budget.

The chief executive of Cork City Council, Ann Doherty, said the council could perhaps explore if state funding through other schemes might be available to fund footpath repair works.

“I think that maybe we should be looking at a wider opportunity to seek extra funding through other schemes, looking at it from a public health perspective,” she said.