Kilcully residents stage protest to highlight need for footpaths and traffic calming measures

Kilcully residents staged a protest at the weekend over promises for traffic calming measures and footpaths, which they say were made to them then subsequently ignored by the council.

Joan Lewis, chairperson of the Kilcully and Ballincrokig Residents Association, told The Echo: “Cork City Council forced us out onto a very dangerous road to protest on Saturday. 

“We got a great turnout, but a lot of neighbours wouldn’t walk that road — even for a protest.”

The group had previously protested outside City Hall in April, but Ms Lewis said that since then “nothing has changed except for the amount of traffic coming into Kilcully has gotten worse”.

There had been multiple fatalities in the area, with one occurring just a week after the protest outside City Hall, and she warned the council that more deaths would occur if traffic-calming measures were not implemented.

Ms Lewis said: “There’s no infrastructure to take the traffic and the articulated trucks — the ditches are made of stone, and these stones keep falling off when lorries hit the ditches, they’re falling onto the road and people have blown their tyres on them.”

Ms Lewis explained that in January 2020 they met with council and engineers and were promised traffic-calming measures, footpaths, and public transport “but nothing has happened; we were told funding was allocated but it doesn’t seem to be there now. Every other side of the city has footpaths, we can’t walk into the city like they can on the southside.”

Ms Lewis added: “We’re at this for a long time, going to The Echo, the radio, and still nothing changes — they brought us into the city, built a load of houses around us and are just ignoring us completely now.”

Green Party councillor for Cork City North East Oliver Moran shared an update he received last week from a senior engineer who said the scheme is progressing “as per the advised programme”.

“The preliminary design and Part 8 planning for the scheme is complete,” the update read. 

“The detailed design stage is currently ongoing and scheduled for completion in mid-2025. Land acquisition is also ongoing, this is also expected to be complete in mid-2025.

“We aim to acquire all the required lands for the provision of new footpaths etc through agreement with affected landowners.

“If agreements cannot be secured it may be necessary to progress a CPO [compulsory purchase order] process. 

“Our recent experience of CPO suggests that this could delay commencement of construction beyond 2025, although we would hope to avoid this type of delay.”

Mr Moran said: “The 2024 budget for the Kilcully & Upper Glanmire Pedestrian Improvement Scheme is unchanged at €1.2m. 

“The frustration from residents demanding the project is very clear. 

“It’s not the only project that’s slow to deliver due to the pace of acquiring land. 

“I hope that can be concluded without need for a compulsory purchase, which can add further time again.

“There are about 22 property owners along the route of the scheme. 

“This includes the boundary of residential homes and gardens.

“Speaking to the engineering team, they have been refining the plans to lessen the amount of land needed. That’s hoped to make reaching agreement with property owners more likely.”