Cllr's Warning over Westport's By Pass Roads

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="04b785a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Councillor Keith Martin </B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Councillor Keith Martin "><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="news21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="News"><U><I><B><U>Back to news page</U></B></I></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <IMG SRC="07189bd0.jpg" border=0 width="137" height="189" ALT="Large photo Councillor Keith Martin" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Cllr's Warning over Westport's By Pass Roads</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Westport Independent Cllr Keith Martin has warned people not to expect instant action on the proposed bypass linking the Castlebar and Newport roads. Cllr Martin says it will be a decade or more before the road is open for business and that is only conditional on funding which has not yet been granted. Cllr Martin says that he is concerned that there is a high expectation that the road will be completed in a matter of years.</div> <bR> <div> “This Friday (6th August) is the closing day for submissions about the choice of the routes and there has been a lot of discussion about the project around the town. This leads me to fear that people expect the road up and running in a year or two. I want to emphasise now that even if everything gets the green light tomorrow that it will be at least ten years before the road is opened-if ever.</div> <bR> <div> “There is an expectation because of the publishing of the routes in the papers and because of the talk around town, that this is only a matter of starting the road and finishing it in a year or two. </div> <bR> <div> “It is important that people realise that at present there is no funding agreed for the road and that getting the funding will be no easy task. It is also important to note that this is a Mayo County Council project not a Town Council one. Westport Town Council only has an input into the program it does not have the overall say. The timing of the project is out of our control. We waited 20 years for a sewage system, we could be waiting even longer for our bypass road.</div> <bR> <div> I don’t want people getting their hopes up. The bypass roads are badly needed but they are still only in the planning stage, there is a long way to go.”</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>