Stop and go as signals and protest close street

FAULTY SIGNALS and a protest combined to stop the traffic on Sligo’s main street yesterday – just hours after it was controversially reopened following more than three years of pedestrianisation.

Cars were allowed back on to O’Connell Street at 8am yesterday but the street had to be closed  a couple of hours later when a problem developed with the traffic lights at the top of the street.

Traffic was flowing again by the time demonstrators arrived for a planned protest at 1pm, and gardaí briefly closed the street until the rally was over.

The stop-go pattern continued into the afternoon as further problems with the traffic signalling system meant vehicles were diverted away from the street until the issue was resolved before 3pm.

Campaigners who had appealed to councillors not to allow traffic back into the “heart of the city” vowed yesterday to hold further protests.

“I felt very sad walking along the street today with two small children,” said protester Eddie Lee, a member of the Sligo Democracy Group.

“I think it is shameful to see traffic back into the heart of the city. We had so much hope that we had moved into the 21st century and that we were going to have a civic centre where families could walk with children.”

The mayor of Sligo, Cllr Jim McGarry, was heckled last weekend when he turned on the Christmas lights on O’Connell Street.

The mayor has claimed that citizens of the East Ward of Sligo had been disenfranchised when the street was closed to traffic. He said that elected members had voted on this issue three times.

Angry councillors accused members of Sligo Chamber of Commerce of abusing the mayor during the protest, and said those involved should be “named and shamed”. But the chamber, which is opposed to the reopening, insisted it had not organised last weekend’s protest. Those opposed to the decision to reopen the street said 60 submissions signed by 2,850 people supporting their stance had been submitted during the planning stage. Only two submissions signed by 100 people had supported the decision of borough councillors to allow traffic back on to the street.