'In a shocking state' - Fears elderly residents of Laois estate could suffer serious fall
There are fears that elderly residents of a Laois estate could have a serious fall due to the deteriorated state of its roads and footpaths.
Councillor Ollie Clooney has urged Laois County Council to resurface the road in Gash Court estate in Castletown in the interest of the safety of its residents.
The local councillor pointed out that the same road has been in the estate since it was first built almost 50 years ago.
“It has long deteriorated and the paths have also deteriorated,” Cllr Clooney said at the recent meeting of the Borris-in-Ossory/Mountmellick MD.
Laois County Council stated that the Area Office will continue to carry out routine road maintenance work on the L-10778 road subject to available budgets and resources.
However, there is no budget available in 2026 for proper road restoration works. The council suggested that a Community Improvement Scheme (CIS) application be submitted.
Unhappy with the response, Cllr Clooney said: “There’s a lot of elderly people that live there and I’d like to see it made safe because if they fall it’s bad news. It’s not that big of an area, it won’t cost an awful lot of money.”
Supporting the motion, Cllr James Kelly argued that the delays in getting funding from the scheme would be far too late for the estate which he described as being in a “shocking state.”
“There are 37 CIS applications at the moment on the waiting list and we’ll get four this year. It could be another 10 years before we get any work done with the CIS here. We have to look at this another way and see where we can get funding,” Cllr Kelly said.
He added that Gash Court has been taken in charge too and so “it should be under the council’s expenditure to sort this issue.”
Also backing the motion, Cllr Conor Bergin agreed that a CIS application is “just unrealistic” for the Castletown estate.
Laois County Council has previously patched parts of the estate’s road, but as Cllr Kelly said, “it’s gone beyond patching now.”
In terms of the lack of funding for repairing the road at Gash Court and in other estates around the county, Cllr Paddy Bracken pushed for Laois County Council to write to the department seeking more funding for housing estates as they “won’t be sorted in the short term.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme