The request for weekend work to start on Church Street to speed up the water mains rehabilitation has been denied.
Speaking at Monday’s Athlone Municipal District meeting Cllr Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran asked project engineer Grahame Niven if it would be possible to bring workers in over weekends to ensure Church Street could be open to traffic as soon as possible.
“How come crews can’t work Saturdays and Sundays? I know this work has to be done, but we need to speed up the process. Can’t they work double shifts or whatever needs to be done?” he asked.
Mr Niven explained that weekend work would come at a huge cost and that the final decision on such a request would be up to Irish Water.
Mr Niven added that the employer’s representative received a contract stating working hours of between 7am-7pm, Monday to Friday and that there has been no request made for them to work weekends. “We would have to address the cost implications and go to Irish Water with a costing,” he said.
Another request for more crews to be brought into Church Street was also denied as Mr Niven explained that you physically couldn’t fit more workers into the space being worked on at Church Street.
