Capital projects bite the dust

Extreme disappointment has been the predominant reaction as a number of major projects considered crucial to the future development of County Meath have been deferred or shelved as the government revealed the contents of its Infrastructure and Capital Investment Programme for 2012-2016 last week. Among the key investment projects facing an uncertain future are the Navan rail line and the N2 Slane bypass. Neither has there been any mention of funding for the new regional hospital for the north-east which is to be located in Navan. Of all the projects involving capital expenditure in Meath, surely it is the Slane bypass which must be considered the most crucial, at least in terms of public safety. Slane is a notorious accident blackspot where at least 22 people have lost their lives and countless others have been injured in road incidents in and around the medieval narrow bridge and the steep approaches to it along the N2. There is a deep community-wide desire to end the spiral of carnage and loss of human life that has marked this spot for decades. The 22 white crosses erected on the short stretch of road in Slane are a testament to the dangers faced by locals every day negotiating this route. The last life to be lost was that of two-year-old David Garvey in 2001, who was killed when the car he was in was crushed by a runaway truck. It was this little boy's horrifying death, in particular, which proved to be a catalyst for action and lit the touchpaper of a campaign that began to demand a new road to take traffic away from the bridge. The campaign was given added impetus in March 2009 following a multi-vehicle pile-up in which, mercifully, no-one was badly hurt. After decades of calls to build a new road and bridge that would take traffic away from Slane, the clamour to finally deal with this issue had brought the bypass project to the brink of construction this year, with a decision now awaited from Bord Pleanala in the coming weeks on whether or not to give the new road the go-ahead. Any decision in favour of the project going ahead, however, will now be rendered meaningless as there is no money to built it. The very cogent arguments from Michelle Power of the Bypass Slane Campaign elsewhere on this page gives some sense of the frustration that is being felt in Slane at this decision, notwithstanding people's understanding of the difficult economic circumstances in which we finf ourselves. This year's Bord Pleanala hearing into the project was told it was only a matter of time before more people were killed on this road unless a bypass is built. Virtually everyone believes the bypass is essential both to save lives and restore some quality of life to those who live in Slane. Delaying this project indefinitely sends entirely the wrong signal to the local community at a time when there is a huge focus on getting to grips with the rate of deaths on the roads. The Navan rail line is considered another vital piece of infrastructure, from an economic perspective, and its omission from the government's capital spending programme is a further disappointment. Despite the fact that Meath now has a population that has grown to over 180,000, it remains the only county surrounding Dublin without a heavy passenger rail service linking its major centres of population to the capital. Moreover, this rail system was to be the catalyst for further commercial and retail development in Navan by the middle of this decade and the local development plan was predicated on this happening. The failure to have it included in the govt's spending plans must now call into question ambitious plans for the new business quarter planned for the Trim Road/Carriage Road area of Navan. The ability of this county to grow itself out of recession and create jobs for the 12,000 people who find themselves on the live register in Meath is at least partly dependent on our ability to improve the existing infrastructure. The Navan rail line, as well as providing a convenient transport link into Dublin, would also have stimulated private commercial investment in key areas of the town. Equally, the silence from the government on the planned regional hospital project is deafening, despite the pledges made to the people of Meath before and during the general election campaign earlier this year. The Fine Gael promise to build the hospital within five years of assuming office is already coming unstuck, considering the timescale for planning and design and the fact that no funding has yet been allocated.