BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

Residents from the Menlo and Headford Road area are to hold a public meeting this week to voice their “outright rejection” to plans for the removal of the Kirwan roundabout.

At a recent meeting of the Combined Residents’ Association for Menlo, Carraig Bán, Lakewood Park, Crestwood, Castlelawn Heights, Tirellan Heights, Illaunree, Ballinfoile Park, Caislín and Sandyvale, a motion rejecting the plans to build a new junction was unanimously passed.

The residents have called a public meeting for tomorrow (Wednesday) night in the Menlo Park Hotel at 8pm and have invited city councillors and officials

The plans for a new signalised junction in place of the roundabout – which will see a slip road running along the front of the hotel – are currently on public display as they require a variation of the City Development Plan.

Councillors are expected to vote on the variation in October, and if approved, the project will go to the planning stages with a further vote likely early in the New Year.

Director of Services for Transportation and Infrastructure, Ciarán Hayes, told the Sentinel: “At a meeting earlier this year, we gave the councillors three options: do nothing; construct a divert road at the front of the Menlo Park Hotel or a divert road in the Liosban estate.

“One of the reasons they went with the option for a road to the front of the hotel was the traffic figures – 10,000 vehicles per day use the Liosban and 6,000 on the Menlo Park road,” said Mr Hayes.

He added that funding for the project has not yet been secure from the National Roads Authority.

“We will get as much of the planning process as possible done, and have to go and source the funding. There was a window of opportunity last year and this year for funding,” he said.

Mr Hayes said he is hopeful the Council can purchase land from the owner of the Menlo Park Hotel by agreement, rather than through a Compulsory Purchase Order, but added that a CPO would not delay the process.

Meanwhile, a decision was made last to split the Bodkin (Galway Shopping Centre) roundabout replacements works into two – preliminary works begin this week on realigning the carpark within the shopping centre and creating two new entrances.

Work on removing the roundabout will begin after the January sales and will form part of an 80-day contract, with much of the work taking place at night.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel