MINISTER FOR Transport Leo Varadkar has been urged to meet his new Northern Ireland counterpart with a view to agreeing on a new brief for the controversial A5 road linking Derry with the Border at Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone.
Danny Kennedy, the North’s new Minister for Regional Development, has said he would favour reducing the scope of the A5, probably by improving the existing route rather than proceeding with the new dual-carriageway now being proposed.
In response to a caller to BBC Radio Ulster's Talkbackprogramme, the Ulster Unionist MLA said many people were concerned by the state of the roads in the North and big schemes like the A5 were taking money away from small rural roads.
The £800 million (€917.5 million) project was to be part-funded by the Republic, with €400 million committed in 2006 on foot of the St Andrews Agreement on the basis it would improve transport between Dublin and Co Donegal.
PlanBetter, a joint initiative by An Taisce, Friends of the Earth, Feasta and Friends of the Irish Environment, has written to Mr Varadkar asking him to meet Mr Kennedy in order to agree an amended brief for the A5 project.
“To date the engineers have effectively been precluded from considering an upgrade of the existing road as the brief they were given provided for dual-carriageway even though traffic on the route does not warrant a four-lane road.
“Public transport solutions between Derry and Dublin must surely also be part of a redrafted brief,” PlanBetter spokesman James Nix wrote, suggesting a dedicated coach service from Derry to Portadown, where passengers could transfer to the Belfast-Dublin rail line.
According to an Ulster Unionist submission on the Alternative A5 Alliance website, “it makes no sense to spend £400 million on a new dual-carriageway which isn’t a priority development, when our water system is desperate for additional funding”.
Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliott MLA told the Belfast NewsLetter that with the Irish Government likely to be “reducing its contribution”, even the share of the North’s authorities would “take up a large slice of our budget”.
The Alternative A5 Alliance maintains that the scheme is “disproportionate” in terms of traffic volumes when compared to “the lasting impact it will have on the farming economy, local businesses, arable land loss and environmental impact”.
Last week a public inquiry into the project opened in the Mellon Country Inn, near Omagh, Co Tyrone. It is expected to continue until early July unless the current proposal put forward by the Northern Ireland Roads Service is withdrawn.
