Muddle Of The Road?

Delgany One-Way Plans

till only at the planning stages, the proposed one-way system for Delgany village finally has a face.

With local residents and businesses getting together tonight to examine the above, the one overriding issue is on-street parking for businesses.

And Farrelly’s arbattoir, where the animals need to be delivered straight to their gate of destiny.

Nobody wants to watch Dead Cow Walking every Monday and Thursday.

In the meantime, here’s the lowdown from Greystones’ town engineer Ruairi O’Hanlon on the one-way plans…

The design is based on providing as much space to the vulnerable road user as is feasible and it does so by way of the following:

• Provision of as much footpath space as is feasible.  The focus on the balance of which side of the road the footpath is increased is based on where the local businesses are, i.e. more footpath space is being provided in front of local business than on the opposite side of the road.  This means the footpath from the Wicklow Arms, passing Doe Eyes and up to Farrelly’s Butches, is wider than on the opposite side of the road.  Conversely the footpath outside the Village Mart, the Bear Paw and the Horse and Hound is wider than on the opposite side of that section of road.  The existing kerbline is shown on the drawing by way of a dashed line.  The existing concrete footpaths will be removed and a new footpath will be constructed using a preformed recycled rubber kerbs bolted down onto the existing road carriageway and filled in behind with a buff coloured asphalt concrete (tarmac).

• Provision of a 2m wide contra flow cycle climbing lane which will be separated from the main road carriageway by way of kerbs and bollards similar to those on Rathdown Rd in Greystones.  This will allow slow moving cyclists going uphill to be permitted to do so without being pressured by vehicular traffic.  Bollards will not be placed in front of existing vehicular access to properties.

• Provision of a 3m wide one way road carriageway.  This is ample for a one way in an urban area and can be reduced where required to ensure adequate footpath space.

• A loading bay has been provided for where available space permitted and this is located where currently there is a grass verge outside of the Convent.

The Council plans to carry out some up to date pre works traffic surveys in advance and I am hopeful that these will commence next week and will entail some cameras being erected around the village to capture the everyday comings and goings of vehicles through the village.

I would estimate that we are still a number of weeks away from the start of construction and at least two weeks’ notice will be given prior to commencement.

The Delgany Community Council welcomed the plans, with chairman Paul Armstrong said, “Delgany Community Council are supportive of WCC addressing the unacceptable traffic situation in the village, which at peak periods is a real safety risk. Earlier this year, we carried out a survey of the Delgany community which strongly supported the concept of a one-way system in the village to address the traffic issues. So we are pleased to see this work commencing now.”

Reacting to the plans, Patti Shields from the Delgany Village Business Association issued the following statement.

We all celebrate the fact that much needed and long overdue safety improvements are being made to make Delgany Village more pedestrian friendly to our local residents and customers. However, the lack of public parking and available set down and delivery spaces are concerning for us as businesses that count on customers from Delgany village and neigboring communities. We want to make sure that people are able to frequent their favorite village shops and services by all methods of transportation available, and that we can receive deliveries in a timely and safe manner without stopping the road traffic.

We have unique destination businesses in Delgany village, and more opening shortly, and we want the village to be thriving. We also have local treasures – one of only three operating abattoirs in Wicklow at Farrelly’s Butcher Shop – and we need to make sure we are supporting the operation of this local asset without adding the optics of offloading livestock in the middle of the road.

What we are most concerned about is that the current scheme does not solve for the removal of all Convent Road parking, or allow any set down access to businesses, especially pop-ins like The Bear Paw and Farrelly’s Butchers. That places the burden on the private car parks at the Horse and Hound, Wicklow Arms, and Pigeon House to absorb all parking needs, at least in the short term. We have asked for WCC and our local councillors to support our concerns – especially to solve for the profound lack of parking issues as well as make sure that there is clear directional signage so that customers know how to access the village businesses from Delgany Wood Avenue and the roundabout from the north, are not tempted to just bypass Delgany.

We would love to hear from residents and our customers about how we can best serve them during the transition to the new scheme – we are open to ideas about how we can support the one way system as their loyalty and continued custom is critically important to keep the businesses of Delgany village thriving! Please come into any of the village businesses and share your ideas and thoughts with us.

You can also email [email protected]. Now, go luxuriate in Delgany’s history here.