Gritting of roads around Louth schools unlikely

By Olivia Ryan, The Drogheda Independent

With the new year arctic blast impacting on roads across the country, an appeal for gritting to be extended to areas around Drogheda schools emerged this week.

Drogheda Borough District heard at their January meeting that a number of schools are close to main gritting routes.

Cllr. James Byrne said: "I know it is very resource dependent, but if we could look at gritting cul-de-sacs where there are schools. There are four or five schools which are just off the route where gritting is done.”

But Senior Engineer at Louth County Council Mark Johnston said it was “difficult to add to the gritting routes” which are already taking around three hours to complete.

He added that it wasn’t just the cost, the salt and the time needed, but any additional areas would add to the overall budget of around €350,000 which is allocated for the winter gritting programme every year.

He explained that the budget was used to grit six routes across the county, and six drivers.

"So once we add anything to it we go over the budget allocation, and we try to work within that every year.”

Cllr. Byrne said he appreciated the budget constraints, but pointed out that one of the schools was just 100 yards away from a gritting route.

Mr. Johnston said the council were limited to the budget they had.