Owners mobilise over Wilton road plans
Cork City Council has been accused of attempting to ‘sneak’ through widespread changes to one of the city’s busiest roads by residents living along the route.
The local authority has published a Part 8 planning application for the first phase of the Wilton Corridor Project, which will widen the Wilton Road to six lanes, including inbound and outbound bus and cycle lanes.
Details and maps of this first phase, which covers Dennehy’s Cross to Wilton Gardens, have been published on the City Council website.
The local authority says the scheme will “deliver enhanced, safe and appropriate transport infrastructure aimed at providing sufficient capacity to meet current and future travel demands in the area with particular focus on facilities for sustainable transport modes”.
Locals living along the route, however, have reservations about the works and have formed a group to represent their concerns.
John Bowman, the public relations officer for Wilton Community Action Group, says a recent meeting of residents saw almost 100 households along the route sign a petition in opposition to the scheme.
He told the Irish Examiner that the unavailability of information on the entire scheme, the lack of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and fears over subsidence issues are all causes for concern for those living along the Wilton Road.
“Residents have massively mobilised on this issue. The age profile in the area has changed in the past five or six years.
“It was a very mature demographic, but now there are loads of families, there must be forty or fifty children living on the road,” Mr Bowman said.
He said the phase-by-phase basis on which the scheme is being introduced means not all homeowners know how the widening of the road will affect their property.
However, he said he is aware of residents who have been informed that they will lose seven metres from their front garden to facilitate the extra road space.
He said the uncertainty over both the grand scheme for the Wilton Corridor and the lack of information on the impact later phases of the project will have on homes is upsetting locals.
We haven’t a clue what we’re supposed to be signing up to,” he said, adding that locals who have made attempts to obtain details of the scheme in its entirety have been ‘stonewalled’ by the council.
“We consider this to be bully boy tactics, bleeding out information, giving just the bare minimum they are required to provide but nothing beyond that, sneaking it through,” he said.
Mr Bowman said it was outrageous that there is no EIS on the noise and air pollution exposure for locals as a result of bringing the road closer to their homes.
He said homeowners will need reassurances that both the works and having traffic closer to houses will not exacerbate existing subsidence issues.
