The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, has said he would not approve Wicklow County Council's plans for a new €20 million road around a controversial dump because he did "not want to do anything to further enrich the landowner in question". Tim O'Brien reports.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) initially intended to build a new interchange on the N11 at Kilpedder in the north of the county. The interchange was to connect the N11 to Greystones, bypassing Delgany and serving the construction of almost 3,000 new homes in the area.
However, the NRA voiced concern that the land for the interchange had once been a dump and the former chief executive, Mr Michael Tobin, said trial tests had revealed contamination of the site. The NRA said it would redesign the interchange instead, leading to years of delays, while the dual carriageway which it was to serve is now almost complete - coming to an end within a few hundred yards of the N11.
The situation was described by the Minister yesterday as "ridiculous" and "the road to nowhere". Mr Roche said he was "mystified" as to why the council had allowed the situation to develop but he was not going to accept a proposed relief road around the dump. He said: "I do not want to do anything to further enrich the landowner in question".
He added that he did not want the "public taxpayer to pay for the remediation of the interchange particularly as Wicklow County Council rezoned the land and the strategic policy committee should have seen this situation before they allowed it to happen".
Mr Roche said there was a new proposal which would link the dual carriageway to the N11 through a new 150 metre stretch of single carriageway "left on, left off" until a more permanent solution "which does not involve the taxpayer either paying for the land to be remediated or for a new €20 million slip road around it".
The Minister said the dual carriageway was "virtually complete" and the connection between the N11 and Greystones could be open later this year, ending "this ridiculous impasse".