100 signatures reached
To: Shane Ross the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and Wicklow County Council
South Wicklow needs a slip road from M11 onto Vale Road in Arklow
We are calling on the Minister and Wicklow County Council to prioritise the construction of a slip road on and off the M11 to the Vale Road in Arklow. This will help address the serious traffic problem in Arklow and help unlock South Wicklow's potential.
Why is this important?
Arklow Sinn Féin representative John Kelly and John Brady TD have started a campaign for the construction of a slip road on and off the M11 to the Vale Road in Arklow. Wicklow County Council needs to commission a feasibility study to allow for a funding application to be made to the Department of Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
Arklow is a fantastic town with massive amounts of potential that needs to be unlocked. Hopefully An Bord Pleanála will be making a decision on the new sewage treatment plant very soon, this will go a long way to unlocking the potential Arklow has, however traffic in the town is still a major problem and it needs to be addressed to ensure that the towns potential can be fully unlocked.
Key to addressing the traffic problem would be the construction of a new slip road on and off the N11 to the Vale Road. Currently people travelling to Woodenbridge or Aughrim have to come through Arklow. This is unnecessarily bringing cars into the town and adding to the congestion and lengthy unnecessary journeys for them. It’s really unbelievable that this slip road wasn’t constructed in the 1990’s when the Arklow Bypass was being constructed.
There are also a considerable number of new houses under construction on the Vale Road, this will also add to the traffic problem, the most logical thing to address the issue is to construct the new slip road to take cars out of Arklow. This was one of the main proposals in Deputy John Brady’s Unlocking Arklow’s Potential document which he published last year.
When the Unlocking Arklow’s Potential document was published the Minister for Transport was contacted and was asked about funding for the construction of the slip road. The Minister informed us that no application for funding has been forthcoming from the local authority for the project and that a feasibility study should first be carried out.
For South Wicklow to develop this slip road is critical and we are calling for it to be prioritised. We will continue to push this project as we see it as key to unlocking Arklow’s potential.