Opinion: Time to make in-roads into private lane repairs

Fine Gael Cllr Val Smith spoke to the Celt this week about how he felt “embarrassed” canvassing for votes down private lanes and cul-de-sacs in rural areas during the last two local election campaigns in 2014 and 2019 because of the condition of the roads.

The next local election is due in 2024 and, at the rate Cavan County Council is getting through the backlog of works approved under the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS), Cllr Smith and other elected representatives may prepare themselves to be red-faced once again.

To be fair, the council and the councillors themselves are not to blame for the condition of these roads. The anger of residents, farmers and business people living on these lanes has been largely directed at the local authority and local elected representatives. They are on the front line but they have little power in this regard. All councillors can do is assist with paperwork for the schemes and make representations on behalf of constituents. All the local authority can do is process the applications as they arrive and put them in the queue until the next tranche of funding arrives from central government.

In the meantime, the people are left shovelling gravel into potholes at their own time and expense.

Cavan County Council has been proactive in terms of applying for funding to the various government departments to carry out these type of works. It was heartening to see that the local authority was awarded a top up in funding for such works last week, bringing the total funding in the county in 2021 under LIS to €1.12M. Cavan got one of the largest allocations in the country under Minister Heather Humphreys’ department.

The only caveat: The works must be complete before the end of the year in order to draw down the funding!

That said, people can have confidence in Cavan County Council to get the job done – the local authority had applied for almost €1.2M in funding under the scheme and would not have done so if it did not believe it could complete the necessary works on time.

This has been one of the most contentious issues in the council chamber in the current term.

Council officials have admitted that it would take around €12M in funding to clear the backlog of 220 lanes, approved, and on the waiting list – some of them going back 14 years to 2007.

The latest allocation should see around 20 lanes done but, with more applications coming in every year, it’s going to take a lot more money to get this problem sorted.

Cavan County Council cannot spend public money doing these type of works on what are essentially private lanes – that was part of the reason the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) was established with funding from central government.

That is understandable but, in a rural county like Cavan, there is a maze of private laneways and cul-de-sacs with thousands of people living on such lanes.

These people, taxpayers, are not asking for the work to be done for free. Under the scheme, they must contribute to the cost of the works with a cap of €1,200 on the amount any individual householder or landowner will be asked to contribute.

Just like everyone else, they pay their road taxes and levies on fuel etc. They deserve to have proper and safe access to their homes, farm and places of business. They shouldn’t have to replace burst tyres or buy gravel to effect temporary repairs on their roads.

The backlog exists, in a large part, because the LIS was discontinued in 2011 by the then Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar in the wake of the recession. It wasn’t reinstated until 2018.

€1.12M is welcome but ten times that is needed to bridge the gap and bring these roads up to standard.

What further complicates the issue is that it appears to fall between three departments – the Department of Transport; the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Agriculture.

Cavan County Council has written to all three in recent years in an effort to secure funding for these type of roadworks in the county.

One minister needs to be responsible for private lanes and, regardless of who that is, the government needs to fund the necessary works to clear the backlog.

While a ‘first come, first served’ rule may seem fair when it comes to clearing the backlog, this system also needs to be reviewed. A number of other factors should be taken into account such as the condition of the road, the length or cost of the works and the number of people using/living on the route.

Cavan rid itself of the ‘Pothole county’ nickname years ago. We don’t want it back.

The issue of LIS in Cavan has been a long and winding road and, for those still waiting on their roads to be done, they can expect a bumpy ride for another while yet.