COUNCILLORS were counting the cost of road improvement works for Bandon, Kinsale and Innishannon at a recent meeting of the Western Division.

They welcomed an allocation of €650,000, this year, for a westerly extension of the N71 bypass of Bandon town.

Roads director, Mark O’Sullivan, said technical advisors, FT Clandillon, were appointed in 2025 to progress phase two of the design, and the emerging preferred route will be brought, for consideration, to one of their meetings in April, ahead of publication.

An additional €500,000 will see the Archdeacon Duggan Bridge in Kinsale waterproofed and resurfaced this year.

A €100,000 ‘project outline document’ is being prepared for the proposed Innishannon Bypass and will be submitted to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) for review.

A further €50,000 in government funding, through the specific improvement grants scheme, has been allocated for the appointment of technical advisors for works that are to be carried out at Pewterhole Cross.

Meanwhile, the sum of €30,000 has been allocated by the council’s own regional and local road design office to compile a project outline document (POD) for the Bandon northern connectivity corridor in 2026.

And a further €30,000 will be spent on developing a POD for a northern connectivity corridor in Kinsale.

Cllr Gillian Coughlan (FF) said the allocations were good news for Bandon, Kinsale and Innishannon.

She said the POD allocations ‘won’t go very far’ but it was important to begin work on the norther connectivity corridors for Bandon and Kinsale.

Cllr Coughlan said: ‘The fact that these two projects will be worked on in-house at Cork County Council is to be welcomed.’

Cllr John Collins (Ind Ire) said local farmers and residents will want to know where the northern bypass is going to go and welcomed the engineering department’s decision to bring it to council in April.

Cllr Marie O’Sullivan (FG) said: ‘I am delighted that Pewterhole Cross is being assessed for works because it is one of the most dangerous junctions in the region.’

She said this rural crossroad, where the main R600 Cork to Kinsale road meets the road for Charles Fort and access to a light industry base at the northern side of the town, has become one of the busiest junctions serving one of the fastest growing towns in the county.

Cllr O’Sullivan said Pewterhole Cross is no longer fit for purpose because the roads join at different angles on a steep gradient, making it difficult for motorists to see and navigate
the junction.

In 2022, Cork County Council applied to the Department of Transport for funding to redesign the junction to make it safer, but the application was refused. But now, Cllr O’Sullivan said she is optimistic because the junction has made it on to the to-do list.

Cllr Ann Bambury (SD) complained that work for Bandon, Kinsale and Innishannon is ‘taking years and years.’

‘People are sick of it at this stage,’ she said. ‘Innishannon is in turmoil when it comes to traffic and it is affecting residents and businesses. It’s also affecting the emergency services.

‘The level of funding is wholly inadequate and it is having a massive knock-on effect with places like Crossbarry and Brinny picking up the slack because motorists are trying to avoid Innishannon.’

Although she welcomed the tentative POD start on the connectivity corridors for both Bandon and Kinsale –  which one official described as ‘stage zero’ in a seven-stage process – she said housing developments have been granted planning permission but it is only now that traffic management studies are being carried out.

She complained about lengthy traffic commutes to work, insufficient public transport, and traffic chaos especially in Innishannon, and in Bandon, which she described as ‘the biggest town in West Cork and the gateway to
West Cork’.

Her party colleague, Cllr Isobel Towse, concurred saying: ‘With 246 new houses planned for Clonakilty, the town’s inadequate bypass is gridlocked in the morning, forcing parents to leave home an hour early to drop their children to school’.