Major Louth roads projects in jeopardy as funding cuts to Active Travel confirmed

By Olivia Ryan, The Drogheda Independent

Fears that a series of major roads projects won’t get underway for ten or fifteen years, emerged at the January meeting of Louth County Council.

Cllr. Marianne Butler said that while the award of €800,000 for the Inner Relief Road in Dundalk was “something we would normally be jumping up and down about” it was clearly not enough to complete a project which would cost much more.

She also asked for clarity around the pathfinder project Xerox to Tain Bridge, which received over €2.6 million in 2025.

"What will this, and the €800,000 go towards?” asked Cllr. Butler.

Having submitted a motion to the meeting asking for the two pathfinder projects to be fully funded in 2026, she asked the council to write to the Minister asking for clear timelines on these projects or other active travel projects that have planning permission or are due to be approved in the coming months.

"I am so disappointed that we haven’t got our funding to do the pathfinder in Dundalk in its entirety. I suppose €800,000 is better than nothing and will get us started.”

She said the Inner Relief Road was needed initially to take traffic volumes from Dublin to Belfast, but with the opening of the M1 it doesn’t need to carry the same traffic load.

"It was designed for speed,” she added, saying that the route has now become more of an urban road that pedestrians have great difficulty in crossing.

"If you have any type of disability or impairment, whether you are younger or older, try and cross that road, it is next to impossible.”

She said the government are “condemning us to traffic jams, poor safety and huge driver frustration.”

"If you want to get out at the St. Helena road on to the bypass, it gets severely backed up with traffic, but measures in the Active Travel project were going to address that.”

She said the junction turning to Blackrock from the Inner Relief Road was also really congested.

"This project was going to give us that other turn, specifically for people going to Castlebellingham and Dromiskin.”

"We approved the project for Hill Street Bridge project to Xerox, but what funding is it getting this year..€2,500. What in God’s name are we going to do with €2,500 for that whole stretch of road that has the benefit of planning permission.”

She added: “It is just nuts, we have a college on that road as well.”

Hoey’s Lane in Dundalk constantly led to “a lot of driver frustration”, she said, as it runs alongside the DkIT campus.

“On the Xerox to Greengates project, we all know how important it is. And I know we will sit down over the next few months and do so much consultation, and what will we have? Tumbleweed,” as she revealed that just €30,000 has been awarded for the project.

Cllr. Butler added: “We are one of the biggest towns in the country, our roads were designed for speed, or traffic, for moving that huge volume of traffic from Dublin to Belfast, they are not needed for that now, but they need to work for local people to be safe.”

She said “we need to get that message across to the Minister, the NTA and the Department for Transport, and get that funding back.”

Cllr. John Sheridan agreed there were around twenty projects, which had all been awarded small amounts of money under the Active Travel allocations.

Cllr. Robert Nash agreed it was very disappointing to see the reduction in funding for Active Travel

He added that a focus was needed on finishing one area at a time, including installing bus stops and putting school wardens in if they are needed.

"It is frustrating as €2,500 is not going to go far, €800,000 is maybe not going to go very far either.”

David Jones, Director of Service at Louth County Council said the total allocation for active travel projects in Louth had been reduced to €4.5million. The reductions were applied nationwide, and not solely in Louth.

He said the lower funding award would impact on the council’s ambition to get construction started on a number of projects.

The local authority saw it as a “positive” that allocations had been made for the two pathfinder projects in Dundalk and Drogheda.

He said they would look at how they could “begin implementing on a phased basis both pathfinder projects, even though they “won’t proceed in entirety as we had hoped.”

The council would look at how the €800,000 can advance an element of the Inner Relief Road Project, said Mr. Jones.

Cllr. Ciaran Fisher asked if there was a timeline for a pedestrian crossing between Lidl and the Spirit Store, a busy junction on the Inner Relief Road.

"With the opening of the bike station there we see a lot more foot traffic crossing there.”

He said it was “very perilous to cross, even when the opportunity arises,” and appealed to the council to look at “making this junction safer.”

A safe crossing point is also needed at the Racecourse Road, said Cllr. Fisher.