‘Atrocious’ potholes, punctured tyres and regular minor car accidents are blighting the lives of commuters travelling to and from Cork city and Carrigaline via Carr’s Hill, a notorious local blackspot, according to Carrigaline Councillors.

Fine Gael Cllr Jack White requested that Carrigaline Municipal District “seek the Roads Directorate to engage with Cork City Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to seriously address the sub-standard road conditions and resulting safety concerns on Carr’s Hill. Thousands of people living and working in our Municipal District travel this road every day and are being affected by potholes, poor line-marking, and debris.” 

Mr White said all the Councillors have been contacted numerous times by people working and living in Carrigaline, who have had punctured tyres, damage to their cars, near-misses, small accidents, and potential for larger accidents, while travelling on Carr’s Hill.

The traffic volumes on Carr’s Hill are now back to pre-Covid levels, and are “quite heavy,” said Mr White. “There is a burgeoning population growth in Carrigaline and Crosshaven, that has added to the vehicle journeys there. The Port of Cork is becoming more and more functional in their new location at Ringaskiddy and all the while, with only one form of access in and out of there for distributing cargo around the island, and that includes vehicular access currently travelling on Carr’s Hill,” he said.

While the construction of a new road is welcome, and advance works are progressing, they are now in a situation where for the next few years, Carr’s Hill will be used more and more each day.

The road surface standard is an “absolute disgrace” and the line marking is “atrocious”, said Mr White. “There are potholes everywhere. There is an awful lot of damage being done to cars.” As Councillors representing local residents, Carrigaline Municipal District needs engagement from the Roads Directorate, the City Council, and TII, “to see if something can be done to address it,” added Mr White.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Seamus McGrath supported the motion. Many Councillors were contacted some weeks ago when there was a series of bad potholes on Carr’s Hill road, he said.

There were some repair works done on it, “on the County side of it, but unfortunately, that cannot be said of the City side of it. And it actually took ten days for repairs to be carried out on the City side of it. There are some atrocious potholes, and there were multiple reports of people having tyres damaged. That’s clearly not good enough on a road with that volume of traffic every day,” said Mr McGrath.

While progress is being made on the motorway, with €19m allocated recently, with the best will in the world it will take a number of years before that new road is completed, he said. “Permanent resurfacing on this stretch of Carr’s Hill is badly needed. We cannot keep going with patch-up type repairs for the next number of years while we are waiting on the new motorway. There must be proper resurfacing work done,” said Mr McGrath.

Fine Gael Cllr Michael Murtagh said he has had several motions on the safety aspects of this road over the last 12 months. “It is an issue. We can’t wait for the upgrade of the motorway to address some of the safety issues that are involved on this stretch of road,” he said.