A Poyntzpass woman has called for urgent repair work to be carried out on the main road to Loughbrickland before someone is “seriously injured”.
She said the main carriageway between the two villages – the Bann Road and Poyntzpass Road – is an “accident blackspot” that has caused around five accidents since March.
The motorist, who has asked not to be named, says the issue stems from a gap in the road between the grass verge and the tarmac. When vehicles meet each other, they pull tight into the hedge where the tarmac is missing tarmac, which has sometimes led to accidents.
Her own mum, who has been driving the road for over 50 years, was involved in an accident on March 4. This was reported but action, she says, has yet to be taken.
Since then, a number of accidents have taken place on the road, with the most recent being on Saturday, November 16, when a bus overturned.
She said: “I reported it in March time and there’s been nothing done about it. After that, there were two more cars wrecked by the same issue just up the hill a bit. So there’s been five accidents since March really.
“It’s going to get someone seriously injured. My mummy’s car was wrote off. And that’s in the good weather period. The roads are going to get worse.”
She added: “It’s a bad road anyway and there’s times daddy has had to pull people out of the hedges on that stretch.”
A Department for Infrastructure spokesperson said: “Road safety is a top priority for the Department, and it is committed to reduce and remove, where possible, those risks through engineering measures that fall within its remit.
“The majority of the Loughbrickland to Poyntzpass Road was improved after it was surface dressed in 2023 in conjunction with resurfacing of Railway Street in Poyntzpass.
“The majority of this route is currently considered to be in reasonable condition and there are currently no plans for further investment beyond routine inspections and repair of defects in accordance with the Department’s current limited-service policy.”
Some of the vehicles that have been damaged on the road in recent months
