It’s been seven years and fifteen days…
While it could be a re-worded version of Sinead O’Connor’s classic ‘Noting compares 2 U’, it’s approximately the length of time one local councillor has been lobbying Roads Service to have a small roundabout fixed in Milford Park, Waringstown.
Alderman Mark Baxter, the DUP representative for Lagan River DEA, acknowledged that the work requested is very much low-priority and minor in nature, however he felt compelled to raise the matter, given the seven-year wait for the work to be done.
At a recent council meeting, Ald. Baxter addressed Divisional manager, Mark McPeak.
“In terms of low-priority stuff, when does that eventually fall off if it’s not done? Is there a time frame?” he asked.
“I’m looking at the email I sent in 2017 – I’m not trying to be clever – about a roundabout in Milfort Park in Waringstown.
“I was told it would be fixed. I followed it up in 2018, 2019, 2020, and right up as far as 2022.
“I just continued to be told it was low-priority, so I gave up in 2022.
“So I’m actually just wondering, is there a cut-off time? It is low-priority, so it’s not a big issue, it’s not a high-level strategic thing, but it’s important to the people who live there.
“Is there a cut-off time or will that always be on the list?”
Mr McPeak replied: “Priorities are public-safety related. We will prioritise our work capital or resource to make improvements, and we utilise our annual budget starting at the high-priority work, and working our way down the priority list.
“Generally, our annual budget is not enough to go down to the lower-priority functions.
“Year on year we don’t know how much money we’re going to get, but since limited services started in 2015, generally we have been underfunded and we’ve never been able to get to those lower-priority issues.
“Again, year on year we find things that can deteriorate more quickly, and other things suddenly become a priority.
“So those things that are low priority now or back in 2017 may deteriorate quickly, and those may become higher-priority over time.
“We try and utilise the money the best we can. We make in-year bids in October and January to seek more funding, to be able to fix more defects, but we can only spend the money we get.
“We would like to spend a lot more, we would like to get a lot more. We know what needs done, we know how to do it, but regrettably we haven’t got enough funding or enough people to be able to do all that.
“Northern Ireland can have whatever quality of road network it wants, it just needs funded.”
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