Traders in Cashel, Co Tipperary are threatening to take High Court action against the National Roads Authority's (NRA) decision to delete two access roads from the town's new bypass.
Traffic into the town is expected to be disrupted at lunchtime today due to a protest against the bypass plan being organised by Cashel Chamber of Trade and Tourism.
The bypass is currently under construction and is expected to open to traffic next November.
The chamber claims the decision to delete two access roads from the bypass will have an adverse effect on the town's economy, and it is considering a High Court challenge to have the access roads provided.
Chamber members and their supporters are to meet at Ladyswell, Cashel, at 1 p.m. today for the protest march on the Dublin road. The march is expected to stop traffic on one of the busiest stretches of road in the country at the start of the bank holiday weekend, when traffic will be at its heaviest.
The chamber's PRO, local solicitor Mr Cian O'Carroll, said the Dublin road would not be blocked today, but traffic would have to keep pace with the protest. He said that further road protests were planned in an effort to reverse the NRA decision.
Mr O'Carroll said it was decided to delete the slip roads into the town from the plans after construction had begun.
Local councillors were told that minor technical changes to the plan were intended. Instead, access into Cashel from the bypass had been halved.
Mr O'Carroll said that council officials had the power to reverse the decision, and allow the roads to be built.
He said the chamber wanted to see the bypass built in the best possible manner for the good of the town and to relieve the burden of 14,000 vehicles that pass through Cashel every day.
Mr O'Carroll said the deletion of the access roads meant traffic travelling to or from Cork cannot use what was the closest intersection road and most beneficial access route from the bypass to the town.
It would be a lot more awkward for motorists to reach the town centre, he said.
In three years' time, he added, it would mean that motorists who missed the correct turn-off for Cashel on the Cork side would have to travel to the Horse and Jockey to exit the Cashel to Cullahill stretch of motorway if they wanted to return to the town.
Mr O'Carroll feared that if Cashel was not accessible and convenient to local customers within a 10-mile radius then these people would travel to other nearby towns instead.
Both of the access roads cost less than half a million euro in the overall 30 million bypass contract. Meetings are planned between the Chamber of Trade and Tourism and Cashel councillors to discuss a final action plan in the run-up to the local elections.
Mr Michael O'Malley, the county council's acting director of roads and water, said the NRA had decided that the inclusion of both access roads into Cashel was not justified at this time from the figures for the volume of traffic in the area.
However, this did not mean that they could not be constructed at some time in the future, he stressed.
Mr O'Malley disagreed with the Chamber of Trade and Tourism's view that the effectiveness of the bypass would be reduced as a result of the change to the plans.