Wicklow relief road delayed by illegal dump site

A second relief road being developed in Co Wicklow has run into completion problems because of the presence of an unlicensed dump.

The Blessington inner relief road was designed to provide a link between the Blessington to Naas road and the N81 north of the town.

While the road has been completed to a point where access is available to Blessington town centre, an unlicensed dump lies in the path of the last quarter of the road, which passes to the rear of the recently built Woodleigh housing estate.

The situation mirrors difficulties in the east of the county where the Greystones access road, a four-lane dual carriageway with cycle lanes, footpaths, lighting and reinforced median barriers, remains unconnected to the N11, because of the presence of an unlicensed landfill. Woodleigh and other housing developments at Blessington demesne were predicated on the relief road being built to serve almost 1,000 new homes.

Property developers and land owners agreed to provide the relief road and three associated roundabouts.

Many of the houses have now been occupied and about three-quarters of the road has been completed. But it remains unopen behind concrete barriers on its southern section, while the northern end runs up against the unlicensed dump.

The dump was illegally created on land belonging to Roadstone. The company has given the builders a right to build the road across the company land but is awaiting a determination from the Environmental Protection Agency on its plans to remove illegally dumped waste.

The Department of the Environment, which has responsibility for non-national roads, said its role would be mainly to provide funding to Wicklow County Council for the road, and as this was being carried out by property developers the department had little involvement.

But Fine Gael TD for Wicklow Billy Timmins yesterday called for the road section which has been completed to be opened.

"It's unfair that because there is an illegal dump on the last section of the route that the part of the road which is finished cannot be opened," he said.

According to Mr Timmins, it could take years for issues surrounding the illegal dump to be sorted out and "meanwhile the residents are looking at this new section of road over concrete barriers which they cannot use".

In east Wicklow the Greystones Southern Access Route has been dubbed "the road to nowhere" because it ends in a field about half a kilometre short of the N11, to which it was supposed to connect. Like the Blessington road it was designed to link into a national route and was also built with funds from local property developers.

More than 2,000 homes will eventually have access to the Greystones Southern Access Route but its link to the N11, effectively a bypass of Delgany, has been delayed because the National Roads Authority refused to finance an interchange on an unlicensed dump.

While that interchange has now been relocated away from the dump, it was not included in the 2005 roads programme.

The NRA said it may be included in the 2006 roads programme but the interchange, which includes an underpass of the N11, is expected to take two to three years to build.

An interim measure to allow a single-carriageway access to the Greystones Southern Access Route from the N11 has been put forward but is still in the planning process. The council hopes the interim solution may be in place next year.