Much-needed Mayo town bypass given 'realistic' 8-year timeframe

The head of the Mayo Roads Design Office (RDO) has said it may take until 2033 for the Ballinrobe bypass to be opened.

Paul Hyland told a meeting of the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District yesterday that based on the progress his office has made on the delivery of the ongoing Ballina bypass, it will take them three years to get to a stage where they are satisfied they can seek planning permission and permission for CPOs from An Bord Pleanala for the Ballinrobe bypass, which is currently at Phase 0 for Scope & Pre-Appraisal.

It will then take an additional year for that decision to be made. At this stage, it will take another two years for detailed design and preparation of contract documents for a contractor to be procured. The construction will then take another two years.

“You’re looking at 2025 to 2033 by the time the Ballinrobe bypass will be open. That is the realistic timeframe we are looking at,” he said.

He said that progress in 2025 is largely dependent on the funding available to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the office resources available to the Mayo RDO. The allocation for the project in 2024, which was used primarily for Phase 0, was €25,000. A Project/Programme Outline Document (POD) has been submitted to the TII for approval.

Cllr Damien Ryan said that provision needs to be made at the next meeting of the Roads Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) for councillors in the Ballinrobe engineering area to attend the monthly meetings between TII and the Mayo RDO.

“We need to attend to reinforce the urgency of this. We are a long way from getting lines on a map,” he said.

Cllr Michael Burke said Ballinrobe cannot continue to wait for a bypass.

“Someone will lose a life because of the traffic or because an emergency vehicle cannot get to them and that will wake TII up. We need funding for this so Paul Hyland’s office can make progress,” he said.

Cllr Patsy O’Brien said Ballinrobe was currently one of the worst towns in Ireland for congestion and said the sort of urgency that has been put on the Adare bypass in Limerick needs to be put on Ballinrobe.

“Adare is getting full attention now because it’s hosting the Ryder Cup. It’s a pity there’s no Ryder Cup in Ballinrobe,” he said.

More on this story in next week’s Western People…