Three Tipperary Town organisations; March4Tipp, Jobs4Tipp and Tipperary Town Chamber of Commerce, have released a press statement in relation to the proposed N24/N74 roadworks for Tipperary Town.
An unprecedented number of submissions were made on the planned roadworks in Tipperary Town. 260 submissions were received on the proposed N24/N74 roadworks in Tipperary Town. March4tipp Councillor Annemarie Ryan has read all the submissions and believes an overwhelming majority of submissions are not in favour of the roadworks going ahead until the traffic is removed from the town centre. According to Cllr Ryan, the submissions can be interpreted as follows: 191 AGAINST 44 FOR WITH CHANGES 7 NEUTRAL 18 INVALID (AFTER CLOSING DATE) (A petition was also handed in with 326 signatures against the proposed roadworks) Many of the submissions object to the roadworks because of the huge number of existing traffic going through Tipp town and the fact that these would have to be diverted for two years.
Tipperary County Council accept that the roadworks will not address traffic congestion, nor the noise and air pollution caused by heavy traffic. The council have previously stated that two separate schemes are running in parallel: town centre roadworks and the proposed N24 Realignment. March4tipp, Jobs4Tipp and the Chamber argue that the council are once again putting the cart before the horse. Expecting the town centre roadworks to go ahead, before the delivery of a Ring road or Bypass is unacceptable to the local community, this is borne out in the large number of submissions objecting to the proposed roadworks.
Furthermore, there is a lot of concern expressed in the submissions about the current design. Tipperary Town Chamber and Jobs4tipp argue that the removal of virtually all parking spaces from the Main street, (leaving the town centre with 4) will negate heavily upon town centre retail, both daytime and night-time trade, among other issues.
After yesterday’s Workshop, where a consensus was not reached, a further workshop has been organised for Monday, 25th January, with the 11 Councillors in the Tipperary-Cahir-Cashel Municipal District due to vote on planning permission for the project on 28th January.
