THE CONTROVERSIAL dual carriageway planned for south county Wexford, running from Oilgate to Rosslare, has been shelved by Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar.
In a letter to opponents of the route, he said: “Given the budgetary situation, the NRA [National Roads Authority] does not propose to advance this project to the next stage at this time.”
Wexford County Council, which has already paid consultants Mott McDonald €2 million for a route selection report, has yet to be notified officially that the scheme is no longer on the NRA’s agenda.
The Joint Communities Committee, representing people living along the proposed route, said it expected the council would drop the road from the county development plan, now being revised.
A committee spokesman said: “Nothing more will be done on this proposed project for the life of the next county development plan and it is now up to our county councillors to act for the people.”
Michael Carroll told the Wexford Echo newspaper: “We are delighted that the NRA is at last seeing sense in relation to this project”, as the route selection report was “unacceptable”.
It “completely ignores the far cheaper option of upgrading the existing road where necessary” and even made the “farcical and completely unacceptable claim of benefiting traffic congestion in the UK midlands”.
A county council spokesman said the route selection report had been forwarded to the NRA in September, together with a request for approval to provide “appropriate funding” to proceed.