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A number of Wicklow TDs and councillors gathered on the Lee family farm in Kilquade on Saturday, as a deadline nears for submissions on Transport Infrastructure Ireland’s plans to improve the N11.
The State road builder, with partners Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Wicklow county councils, held a public consultation on improvements to a 22km stretch of the N11/M11 between Shankill, Co Dublin, and Coyne’s Cross, near Ashford, Co Wicklow.
Consultant Arup’s preferred option for the improvements rejects alternative routes to the current N11, and aims to reduce traffic congestion by closing a number of access roads and junctions. It has also recommended a number of public transport improvements.
Local mobility is to be served by the creation of a number of new local roads which will carry traffic without the need to access the M11/ N11.
However, a proposal to close a junction serving Kilquade and build a new local road linking the Kilquade Road to the Farankelly Road, has provoked much local opposition. A petition on change.org has garnered some 500 signatures.
Locals met with TDs and councillors on Saturday to view for themselves how the proposed road would divide the Lees’ farm.
Joyce Lee told The Irish Times the new road would come right past the windows of her family home, “almost taking the house with it”, and severing their land holding, while the family and surrounding wildlife would also have to suffer the impact of night time lighting from passing traffic and any street lighting.
The Lees’ home is on rising land at an area known as Seaview and the road and lights at night could potentially be seen from the coast several kilometres away.
Best option
The best option for locals would be to leave the Kilquade access to the N11 open, said Ms Lee. But if the new road had to be built, she said locals were asking that it be built around the edge of the farm, not across it. The diversion would involve the proposed road going west of the hill on which the Lees’ house sits, and run beside the N11, from the Kilquade road to the Farankelly road which itself links to the N11.
“We are not even saying do not put the road on our farm, just put it around the edge, if it has to be there at all,” said Ms Lee.
Locals also claim neither Wicklow County Council not Transport Infrastructure Ireland warned such action was a potential outcome to the scheme, which originally looked at alternative routes for the N11.
Ms Lee said politicians in attendance included cllrs Mary Kavanagh, Tom Fortune and Mags Crean, TD John Brady and Stephen Matthews, while Minister Simon Harris sent a representative.
The meeting on Saturday was open to the public. The Lees farm is close to the the Kilquade junction of the N11.
Closing date for submissions on foot of the public display is October 4th. The petition can be found here.