Collapsed manholes and culverts in Wexford forcing motorists to ‘swerve into the middle of the road’

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

Drivers passing through the Wexford town of Bunclody are being confronted by an unusual set of obstacles which, according to local councillor Barbara Anne Murphy, will cause a serious accident if left untended to.

The first of these obstacles are a number of manholes which have borne the brunt of the increase in heavy goods vehicles coming through the town.

“The manholes are acting as speed bumps at the moment, they’re destroying cars, they’re sinking at an awful rate,” she said at the monthly meeting of the Enniscorthy Municipal District (EMD). “Since Brexit and the increase in activity at Rosslare Europort the number of HGVs coming through the town has increased significantly.”

Should drivers negotiate the manholes further obstacles await.

“There’s a culvert on the N80 near Aldi which collapsed four years ago,” continued Cllr Murphy. “Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) isn’t doing anything to fix it. People are swerving into the middle of the road to avoid it. It’s going to cause an accident.”

However, finding the funds to remove these obstacles and make life safer for those travelling to and from Bunclody is not easy.

“There are two requests gone into TII for funding for those manholes,” replied district engineer Neil Dempsey who outlined the lack of available resources for the N80 in the EMD.

“We got €18,000 for works on the N80 this year, we’ve recently done our hedge cutting there and the traffic management for that cost us over €6,000. That’s a third of the budget,” he said.