Overgrown hedgerows are continuing to cause road safety issues across South Galway said councillors at this week’s Loughrea Municipal District meeting on Monday.
“We were given a commitment in Galway County Council a couple of months ago that areas near signs and junctions would be cut. It hasn’t happened,” Cllr Michael Regan (FF ).
“It’s totally unacceptable. I was in the council in ’91, and we were still asking for this, and it is still going on. Either we are a council working for the people or we are working for no one; at the moment, we are working for no one.”
Echoing Cllr Regan’s remarks, Cllr Gerry Finnerty (FF ) highlighted the extent of the issue in his local area saying, “From Gort town out to Lough Cútra National School, all the signs are covered. Same going down the roads to Scarriff and Tulla, but if you look over at Bunnahow in Co Clare, it is cut.”
When the conversation turned to funding these works, each councillor confirmed they would be willing to donate some, if not all, of their remaining allocated discretionary funding to pay for hedge growth cutting.
“If funding is the issue, this year I am willing to give the rest of my funding, which is €3,000, if I could guarantee that the area I represent will be cut as soon as possible.”
In response to the remarks by councillors, senior executive engineer, Derek Troy, said that he and his team are working on a hedge-cutting policy.
“We are working on a hedge cutting policy at the moment, which I will be proposing in the next two to three months and aim to have a draft circulated to all councillors on the foot of the complaints we have had this year, and to familiarise ourselves with the cutting process, and the implications of not cutting hedges.”
In response to this, councillors aired their discontent, pointing out that an actionable policy regarding hedge growth is long overdue.
“We are utterly failing to cut the hedges, and we have been failing utterly to do it over the years,” said Cllr Finnerty.
In response to this, Troy explained that hedge-cutting policies are uncommon across the nation’s local authorities.
“A very small number of councils have a hedge cutting policy, regarding when they could be cut and nesting seasons, and that is what I am hoping to streamline.”
