N11/N25 - Oilgate to Rosslare Harbour [route options published]

Wouldn't do much for the Ferrycarrig area to have s motorway going through it.

Back on track - info from local paper online - wex people

“CHANGES to the pro­posed route for the new Oil­gate to Ross­lare Har­bour mo­tor­way would be a ‘fright­en­ing sce­nario’ for many peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to Fianna Fail coun­cil­lor Garry Laf­fan.
Cllr. Laf­fan was speak­ing at a lo­cal au­thor­ity meet­ing after a progress re­port was pre­sented on the road project which has re­ceived €800,000 in fund­ing for ad­vance plan­ning and de­sign work.
A 300 me­tre-wide plan­ning cor­ri­dor is cur­rently in place for the scheme fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of a Route Se­lec­tion Re­port in 2011.
Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the new stud­ies ‘ will ad­dress the broader project study area to iden­tify key con­straints and to ex­am­ine al­ter­na­tive op­tions’.
‘The cur­rent plan­ning cor­ri­dor will re­main in place un­less or un­til a dif­fer­ent preferred op­tion is con­firmed’, it con­tin­ued.
The preferred scheme is ex­pected to be fi­nalised in 2020 with the project likely pro­ceed­ing through the statu­tory plan­ning pro­cesses by the end of 2022.
‘Peo­ple are wor­ried about whether there are go­ing to be changes’, said Cllr. Laf­fan. ‘A lot of peo­ple are tied down by the 300 me­tre cor­ri­dor. To bring other peo­ple back into it, would be a fright­en­ing sce­nario for a lot of peo­ple. We need to al­le­vi­ate peo­ple’s con­cern about this’.
Fine Gael coun­cil­lor John He­garty asked if there are plans to re­vise the cor­ri­dor route and was in­formed by the Mayor, Cllr. Ge­orge Lawlor that be­cause of the time de­lay, it has to be looked at again but it would prob­a­bly be the cho­sen route.
‘All these things have to be looked at again. The preferred route went through a long process to get to this. There may be tweaks. I would as­sume it would fol­low the route process al­ready un­der­taken’, said Act­ing District Man­ager Diar­muid Hous­ton.
‘Are we check­ing that ev­ery­thing that has hap­pened be­fore is cor­rect’, said Cllr. He­garty.
He was told by Bor­ough En­gi­neer Sean Ka­vanagh that it states in the re­port that the op­tions may vary.
Mott McDon­ald Ire­land were ap­pointed tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sors to as­sist with the de­vel­op­ment of the project through the pro­cesses up to plan­ning.
En­vi­ron­men­tal sur­veys will start in Au­gust as part of the fea­si­bil­ity and op­tion se­lec­tion process.
There will be ‘non in­tru­sive walk-over sur­veys’ by en­vi­ron­men­tal spe­cial­ists and ac­cess will be re­quired to some pri­vate lands to con­duct these sur­veys.
The Coun­cil will en­gage with af­fected landown­ers in ad­vance to se­cure per­mis­sion for the sur­veys.
Sur­veys will be car­ried out through the project study area and the lo­ca­tions of sur­veys will not in­di­cate pos­si­ble route op­tions for the scheme.
It is an­tic­i­pated that an ini­tial pub­lic in­for­ma­tion and con­sul­ta­tion ex­er­cise will start to­wards the end of this year with fur­ther con­sul­ta­tion pro­cesses in 2020

marno21 wrote: »

Scheme website launched @ http://oilgate2rosslareharbour.ie/

Outline timeline from Mott McDonald:

early 2020 - initial public consultation
late 2020 - selection of preferred route
2021 - design / EIS
2022 - planning

These dates are ambitious but Mott McDonald did the planning on this in 2011 so will have the data from back then as a useful asset to inform the new planning application.

More money down the drain given all this work was already undertaken and there has been no material change. This is a waste of taxpayers money imo

jd wrote: »

They have to do it what is required legally required as changed. If they don't, someone will go down the Judicial Review route..

Why do they have to though? Why is this the law? Has it always been the law? Is this a relatively new law?

Looking at the 2011 preferred route option on the website this seems to be a mix of an offline/online build. Would this prevent the road from being granted motorway status? I assume that a 2+2 is being proposed here with fully grade separated junctions.

marno21 wrote: »

The road between Wexford and Rosslare shouldn't even be in the top 50 national priorities to be perfectly honest.

Don't entirely disagree although I suppose because it's part of the Euroroute it probably has a higher profile. That being said, given Brexit there may be some interest in Rosslare as a direct connection point to the continent.

jd wrote: »

From what I remember, it goes back to 2012.
https://www.tii.ie/technical-services/procurement/
If you google a bit, you'll find the changes (as I did a a few months ago, not going to do it again)

Nah, I’ll get a politician on to it

IMO the M11 should be extended all the way to Rosslare Harbour, soon as. Given the uncertainty of Brexit, and the possibility of a bust up with the UK, goods being exported to the continent should go direct.

In a bust up situation, I could see all sorts of delays, paperwork, inspections, when going through the UK.

road_high wrote: »

That's not a good enough reason tbh. It's a lightly trafficed road that was completely upgraded early 1990s. Far worse and busier roads that need attention first.

I fully accept there are numerous roads requiring attention. But the country has to keep exporting, competitively.

A Brexit bust up could lead to a lot of difficulties. Best avoided.

MichealD wrote: »

As a daily user of the road I tend to agree with your overall point. However some solution needs to be found to alleviate congestion on the Wexford bypass section particularly the Maldron roundabout to Whitford roundabout section.

The bypass is effectively a national primary route combined with an outer relief road. 2km+ tailbacks/ 30 minute delays from the Maldron (N25/N11/Wexford town) roundabout are common at peak times/ferry arrival/departure times. If this section was upgraded it would negate any immediate need for a full length upgrade. As the proposed new road is along the existing corridor this could be incorporated into new road at a later stage.

I agree- but it's the poor roundabout layout that is constraining. Need double lanes likes the N10 Kilkenny ring road has at the major roundabouts and capacity is much enhanced. Also upgrade the Johnstown Castle exit to a flyover and close off the existing dangerous junction.
The Wexford bypass element only opened around 1990 I think.

https://wexfordtoday.com/2020/02/28/oylegate-bypass-expected-to-begin-within-2-years/

spacetweek wrote: »

Not clear if he has any evidence for the 2 year claim or if it's just a hunch.

Political hogwash