Mayo councillors seeks changes to roadworks funding model

Members of Mayo County Council’s Roads and Sustainable Travel Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) are seeking an amendment to allow councillors to allocate Notice of Motion (NOM) money towards upgrading non-public roads and public lighting.

The item came before last week’s meeting of the SPC where the council's Acting Head of Roads Conrad Harley explained that if this were agreed NOM allocations could be made towards non-public roads to bring them up to a standard where they could be then taken in charge by the council and also towards extending existing public lighting.

Mr Harley said he wanted time to tweak the wording on the proposed amendment to ensure it is clear that councillors should not be able to allocate funding towards a non-public road if the money only partially repairs it and that funding can only be allocated to existing public lighting schemes rather than creating new schemes.

The idea was mooted by Fine Gael Cllr Jarlath Munnelly who said he understood that this amendment had already been adopted at a recent meeting of Mayo Co Council. He questioned why this was brought up again at the SPC.

The council's Director of Roads Tom Gilligan said the item was being discussed at the SPC as it had been proposed at the council meeting with no advance notice.

“We didn’t have the chance to discuss the financial implications that this amendment could have. Any amendment has a financial implication we need time to consider,” he said.

It was agreed that Mr Harley would bring the proposal before the next meeting of the council with amended wording.