All About Cork: Call for Douglas footpaths and roads to be repaired

Residents, shoppers and others who pass through Douglas on a regular basis will have seen the poor state of some of the footpaths and roads in and around the village. It has been an issue now for some time and the recent spells of poor weather have further compounded the issue.

One person who has been campaigning on this from some time, long before he became a councillor is Labour’s Peter Horgan.

Some time ago he said: “Basic transport is walking but so many people, be they young, old, require wheelchairs or are pushing buggies, find that the footpaths are simply crumbling away.

“Cork City Council has indicated they could not fund an audit and now the Minister for Transport has said he will not fund one either. This impacts Douglas, Maryborough, Rochestown, Blackrock, Beaumont, Ballinlough, Ballintemple, Togher, Mahon, and the city centre itself.

“It’s simply not good enough that funding cannot be allocated t

o conduct an independent audit so we have a clear, objective picture on the scale and cost of the repairs needed. It’s another example of the hands off approach to Cork and it should not be tolerated. We need to know exactly what’s required and cannot wait for the piecemeal currently underway.” A concerned resident and Cllr Horgan took the pictures above in the last week or so and he added: “Some of the road, as I understand it is in private ownership, however there is a larger conversation of how private owners maintain what essentially are public realm.

“I have raised this with the council executive a number of times and this week again have asked for updates on same. There is an onus for private owners to maintain footpaths, roads and if that can’t be done then acquisition must become a serious reality to maintain public safety.”

BusConnects corridors move to the next phase

Independent Cllr and former Lord Mayor Kieran McCarthy has welcomed the move to the next phase of the BusConnects Sustainable Transport Corridors scheme along Douglas Road and Donnybrook and Grange, but encourages continued close communication with the general public.

The National Transport Authority have commenced issuing letters to landowners whose property may be potentially impacted by the proposals for the BusConnects Cork Sustainable Transport Corridors (STC). Following three round of public consultation, the 11 STCs that have been the subject of non-statutory public consultation have now been combined into three standalone proposed Schemes.

Cllr McCarthy noted: “For the Douglas area the standalone proposed scheme is called the ‘Cork City South East Sustainable Transport Corridors Scheme’, which combines Airport Road to City scheme, Maryborough Hill to City scheme, Mahon to City scheme, and Kinsale Road to Douglas scheme.

“The moving on of the BusConnects corridors is welcome as has been the ongoing conversations between individuals and the NTA officials.

“It has been more than a year, November-December 2023, since the third round of public consultation on the BusConnects corridors.

“All of us stakeholders involved are a little bit rusty on what conversations were had during the third round.

“A year is a long time in a community. I have written to the NTA to clarify and to publish what changes have been made arising out of the third round, so all involved are on the same page.

“So we all know the next steps of the process and that close communication continues,” concluded Cllr McCarthy.

Garda forum meeting

The next garda forum meeting will be held on Monday, February 10, at 8pm at Ballinlough community centre.

If you have anything to discuss in your area come along.

The Community Gardaí are here to help.

Ó Laoghaire: HSE and Department of Health must properly fund community bus schemes urgently

Sinn Féin TD for Cork South Central, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, has said that the role of community buses is crucially important and needs adequate support.

He said that he was aware that across Cork city and county, there were many organisations doing excellent work with HSE community-funded buses.

“I am aware of the excellent work that is carried out by many community organisations and groups across the city and county, with buses that are funded through the HSE.

“These along with garda community buses have a crucially important role in ensuring that community groups, including vulnerable categories, such as elderly people, people with disabilities, as well as young people or people without transport and people on low incomes are able to access a variety of events, services and indeed social outings, this is very beneficial to the community.

“However the reality is, the current funding is about €21,000 per annum, this is a sum that struggles to ensure that a service can be put on the road that is able to meet the needs of the communities.

“I am aware of some situations where community groups and organisations and their services are constrained and limited by the funding.

“This means that the service that the bus could provide is not meeting the ambition or the hopes of either the service users or the organisations themselves.

“We believe that services like these need to be expanded and increased. We are trying to take cars off the road and we are trying to reduce emissions and traffic.

“From a social inclusion, as well as from an emissions and traffic point of view, the proper funding of community buses is vitally important.

“I will be raising this issue with the Minister for Health and the HSE at the earliest opportunity and I am calling on them to ensure that funding is increased for these services.

“We cannot overstate the importance of ensuring that people from our communities, particularly elderly and vulnerable categories of people are in a position to attend events, whether social, therapeutic or community based.

“This is crucially important and that is why we need to see adequate funding provided.”

Have Douglas news to share? Contact rory.noonan@theecho.ie