Cllr. Sean Smith, Derry Scanlon, acting senior engineer; Joe McLaughlin, sirector of Services; Minister Brendan Smith; Clifford Kelly, NRA; and Cllr. John Paul Feeley.

€7.5m inner-relief road for Ballyconnell

There is good news for Ballyconnell this week as the go ahead from the NRA Board enabled Cavan Council to go to tender in respect of the €7.5million Inner relief road for the town. Announcing the news in Ballyconnell on Monday afternoon, the Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, said that the new road will free up the town and will help business. The inner-relief road will run from the Derrylin Road to the Belturbet Road and will take a lot of the heavy traffic out of the town.He said Cavan County Council had already done substantial preparatory work on the design and the new road infrastructure will include a bridge and the land has been purchased. Some €2m has already been spent by the county council to-date.Minister Smith said that NRA board member Clifford Kelly had been very proactive in relation to progressing the project and was helpful to the County Manager and the Director of Roads, Joe McLoughlin and executive engineer Derry Scanlon. The County Manager, Jack Keyes, said the project went to the first stage of the tendering process last week. They will get in all the tenders and then the process will be progressed to the preferred tenders stage. "It is the culmination of four years of hard work by many different parties including our own council staff and I would like to thank Minister Smith and all the Oireachtas members and five councillors, Sean Smith, Peter McVitty, Damien Brady, John Paul Feeley and Maura Maguire Lynch for their ongoing support," said Mr. Keyes. He added that in relation to the challenges and opportunities presented by the Quinn Group: "The timing is of great importance as it will enhance the ability of those enterprises and many others to get their products to the marketplace faster." Director of Services, Joe McLoughlin, said it is a significant milestone in terms of the development of this particular project, which has been on the agenda for the last few years. It will open up this part of the country to further investment and is a vote of confidence by the NRA in the region and how it will develop in the next five years.Cllr. Sean Smith said that he was delighted to see that the project had now gone to tender and he is confident the new road will be of enormous benefit to the people of the area and particularly all the industries around Ballyconnell. He said it was also important to note that construction of the new road will create jobs in the immediate area, which will be most welcome.