Delight in Longford over the reopening of N55 before Christmas
Works led to the closure of the N55 in late August for just under three and a half months
Councillors at the recent Ballymahon Municipal District meeting welcomed the reopening of the N55, between Edgeworthstown and Ballymahon, in early-December.
The project along the N55 between the Carrickedmond Church and Ballymahon Mart by Uisce Eireann and Longford County Council was aimed at securing the town's water supply, reducing high levels of leakage, and supporting much-needed growth.
The work led to the closure of the N55 in late August for just under three and a half months.
Fianna Fáil Cllr Pat O'Toole said he was delighted that the N55 had reopened.
"I'm sure i speak for all our members here when I say a special word of thanks to our roads team who did some excellent work, I think we were only three day behind what was originally forecast and the stop-go system is in place once more."
His party colleague Cllr Mick Cahill also said it was very positive that the project had been completed and the N55 had reopened in a timely fashion and he thanked the roads team and all involved.
Fine Gael Cllr Paul Ross said he was also very happy by the progress made on the project and he also referred to maintaining secondary and rural roads which experienced an increase in traffic volumes.
"It obviously was a huge burden on everyone going south from Longford and I'm utterly delighted to see it reopened again.
"I suppose we will have to examine the rural roads off the N55 which did get a bit of a hammering over the last couple of months as regards our roads allocation [funding] for next year.
"It's important that those roads that suffered the most are rectified and just to acknowledge the fantastic work that has been done."