The ongoing roadworks at Mooncoin have been a source of major debate for locals and motorists alike.
“The M50 was finished quicker,” a motorist exaggeratingly quipped last week after one of several delays that she – and thousands more in recent weeks – have experienced while driving through Mooncoin.
And while the N24 Mooncoin Pavement Rehabilitation and Traffic Management Scheme is due to finish on schedule at the end of next month, the project, as Piltown District Councillors were told last Wednesday, has taken on unexpected depths.
According to Ferrybank Area Engineer Ian Gardner: “The original plan (for the scheme) was to take out around 300 millimetres’ depth of material (just under 12 inches – one foot) and that was what had shown up in the technical investigation, but then when (the contractors) started digging, they found that the ground was so bad that they actually had to dig out 900 millimetres (almost three feet) so that increased the price of the contract.
“And under NRA rules, you’re only allowed to increase a contract by 50 per cent and you can’t go over that – even though it’s a genuine reason – so that has placed an additional cost on the scheme.
“So the only way that this could be countered then was to take the final resurfacing work off the contractor so when they’ve got their work done, we’ll have two crews of our own in to finish the scheme, and that should take two weeks to complete. It’s a mechanism to ensure the work is completed without breaking any (contract) rules.”
Mr Gardner told last Wednesday’s monthly meeting in Ferrybank that trial holes had been dug prior to the project’s commencement “to see what the ground was like”, with that soil then sent to specialists.
“But,” as Mr Gardner told Cllr Fidelis Doherty (FG), “until you actually physically dig up the whole road, you just never know…Mooncoin is on bad soil, very bad soil.”
The town’s name is derived from the ancient Irish name for area which refers to ‘Coyne’s Bog’, which in itself reveals something about the nature of the soil upon which the town stands.
Ian Gardner added: “When you go down 300mm, you’re not really hitting or affecting any service (pipes, cables, etc), but when you go down 900mm, you’re going to hit every service, so that’s where the additional costs came from all, all of which are entirely legitimate.” These additional costs, including the final resurfacing works being carried out by the Council’s crews, are being covered by the National Roads Authority.
The works in Mooncoin, which accounted for approximately two kilometres of the N24, are due to be completed by the end of November.
The end product will mean that the carriageway throughout the town will be standardised to a width of 6.5 metres (21.3 feet), while footpaths on both sides of the N24 have been fully upgraded.
New parking and drop-off bays have also been provided outside Scoil Mhuire Lourdes and Coláiste Cois Siúire.
According to Kilkenny County Council, “average daily traffic travelling along this section of road is in the order of 10,000 vehicles, with 10% (of these) heavy good vehicles.”
The project has also revived local discussion about a possible bypass of the town, in which a re-aligned N24 would take HGVs and considerable levels of traffic out of both Mooncoin and Carrick-on-Suir.
But such a major inter-city road project which has been suggested previously by local Councillors, along with former Waterford Mayor Mary Roche and Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath is, in all likelihood, many years away from materialising.
* A fence removed at Coláiste Cois Siúire during the roadworks is the school’s responsibility to re-erect, Ian Gardner confirmed in reply to a question by Cllr Fidelis Doherty. He stated: “They were required to set back their boundary prior to our works commencing, because we facilitated them by putting in a large drop-off and pick-up area, so we gave them the option of a smaller one or a bigger one which would require them to set back their boundary (which they did)…and this was fully explained to their principal. And they were give the same opportunity as we gave to the Boys School, in which they set back their own boundary as well.”
