€400,000 in extra funding for Navan roads

An additional €400,000 was allocated at last week's Navan Area council meeting for extra road surfacing works as funds became available under the revised restoration improvement grant. The money comes on top of the €1.1m already allocated for non-national roads this year and €320,000 for other surface work in the Navan area. Welcoming the additional funding, Cllr Shane Cassells - who proposed the adoption of the scheme - said that it was a welcome boost at a time when so many roads were in need of repair following the extremely hard winter. The additional roads included under the revised funding were the Old Athlumney Road - behind Gaffney's shop (€61,200), Johnstown village (€110,500), Balreask OId and Kilcarn (€102,000) and Veldonstown (€136,000). At the area meeting, Cllr Cassells spoke of the need to make sure that the council maintains a strong roads programme that includes an active repair section as well as full resurfacing works. "I am delighted that we have been able to secure additional funds to tackle the problems of poor road surfaces. We have a broad spectrum of roads from the rural areas of Navan included under the list and I am particularly pleased that from an urban point we will tackle the Old Athlumney Road that caters for so many residential housing areas," remarked Cllr Cassells. "Over the next three years, we are going to invest €3.5m in the non-national road network in Navan and there has been a strong emphasis put on the many roads in the rural area we service." Roads to receive attention this year under the €1.1m restoration programme include Oberstown, Tankardstown, Monktown, Tatestown, Bellew/Rathfeigh, Ross, Grange, Abbeyland, Townsparks, Leggagh and Fringestown. Smaller funding totalling €82,000 will be used for road restoration work at Corbalis, Alexander Reid, Ongenstown and Yellow Walls Lane while a sum of €71,000 has been allocated for work on regional road surface dressing in Kentstown and Wilkinstown.