In a major setback for the critical M7-Sallins bypass road projects, it was announced last week that KCC is now being asked to fund a major part of these road projects from its ‘own resources’. The Minister for Transport says two out of the three M7 road up-grade projects should be funded from Kildare County Council’s “own resources”. The total cost of these linked schemes is €110 million.
These three related projects are:
- the M7 3 lane widening between Naas and the M7 merge
- the Sallins by-pass
- the Osberstown Interchange
Minister Pascal Donohoe has already stated that funding is not available in the short term. In response to a parliamentary question, he now says “with regard to the Osberstown interchange and the Sallins bypass the improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of each local authority”. Consequently, KCC may now be obliged to find the money for these schemes itself, supplemented by State grants. To put this in context, the cost of these schemes would be equal to about 90% of KCC’s entire annual budget. This is not good enough for government to abdicate responsibility like this and jeopardise these works.
A series of consultations are ongoing regarding draft flood maps that have been prepared by the Eastern CFRAM Study for Naas. These maps model flooding propensity in different regions and specific studies have been ran for Naas, Clane, Allenwood, Maynooth, Celbridge, Kilcock, Edenderry, Leixlip and other areas. The public are invited to give their input on the draft maps, to provide local knowledge on flood risk areas around our community. The draft flood maps are accessible on the Study website 
In the 2015 budget at Kildare County Council which was set in late 2014, Fianna Fáil led a motion to cut Local Property Tax by 7.5% for Kildare which was passed and which householders will see the saving in their LPT bills this year. In addition to the tax cut, a further 7.5% of LPT collected was ring fenced for each Municipal District to be spent at the discretion of the elected councillors. In the Naas area agreement has now been reached to use this fund for the following in 2015.
Whilst there are a number of car parking options available throughout the town of Naas I strongly feel the presence of clamping operators in some of the car parks is a significant hurdle to the town centre development. I have tabled a motion for this month’s council meeting to engage with the private car parking operators to transition to a “pay on exit” barrier system instead of the clamping some operators currently use. I have heard too many horror stories from one car park in particular, and this needs to be tackled. I have also requested the council perform a wider study of parking needs and capacity in Naas town and am assured that is now in progress. Working with local traders I have proposed various amendments to the current pay parking system which I hope can be adopted following the study. Finally I have also asked whether the council could provide covers or “hoods” for the parking meters at times of free parking to avoid any confusion like happened last Christmas where some people paid anyway with the machines accepting money, despite free parking being in operation at the time.
While winter is coming to an end (we hope!), I have raised at Kildare County Council that roads around Kilteel and Eadestown be included for regular gritting during frosty weather. This part of Kildare is the highest point in the county therefore is most at risk of icy roads and should naturally be included on the council’s regular gritting schedule. Following discussion the roads crew have proposed a community collaboration project may be piloted here where supplies would be made available to locals to distribute.