Bypass businesses step up campaign

Local businesses which will literally be ‘strangled’ with the opening of the next stage of the M9 motorway have stepped up their campaign to have a slip road built beside the well-known Priory bar and restaurant at Kilgowan.



Up to 150 jobs are at risk if the link isn’t provided, according to Tom Wall (above) of The Priory and Seamus O’Reilly (below) of the Crookstown Service Station. In addition to their own businesses, several others along the short stretch of the N9 affected depend on access by passing traffic.



And their further plea that provision of the off-ramp is absolutely necessary from a road safety issue has been backed up by local councillor Martin Heydon. He has written to the Chief Executive of the NRA, Fred Barry, saying there is still time to provide the exit.

The new section is scheduled to open in the first week of December.

Seamus O’Reilly has been leading a campaign for the last seven years to have provision made for motorists and hauliers come off the new motorway for refuelling, refreshment and rest. This was in line with the then NRA policy that such services should be ‘off-line’, or not part of the motorway system itself.

In the last couple of years, that policy was officially changed, and the NRA proposed ‘on-line’ service areas. One was planned for Halverstown, just outside Kilcullen, and was the subject of an An Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing last March.

Since then, however, all such on-line service areas have been shelved owing to lack of funds in the current economic climate. This, say Tom Wall and Seamus O’Reilly, makes it even more imperative that the southbound exit at Kilgowan be provided.

In their proposals to the ABP hearing, the local interests estimated that providing an exit ramp at The Priory could be done for about €150,000, ‘very inexpensive’ compared to the multi-million-euro proposal for the new service area.

A link to the M9 south of the Crookstown end of the stretch affected is already in place, and the total extra distance involved for southbound motorists who would use the link to services is about a kilometre. The total driving time between the two points, on the existing stretch of the N9, is a mere eight minutes.

This link could also be used by northbound motorists who need to rest or refuel, and they could then resume their motorway journey via the Kilcullen junction a few kilometres further north from The Priory.



The Wall family have offered to turn land adjacent to their business into fully-serviced parking for cars and trucks. This would be at no cost to the NRA, which is no longer in a position to build the mooted service area and is not likely to be for at least five more years.

“Driver fatigue has been identified as being a factor in 20 percent of fatal accidents,” Cllr Martin Heydon says in his recent letter to the NRA chief executive. “However, if the motorway opens ahead of the construction of the service area, then drivers on this stretch of road will have no alternative but to continue driving, due to an absence of a rest or service area. This will lead to a very real road safety issue, with an increased potential for fatal accidents to occur on this stretch of road.”

The report of the Bord Pleanala oral hearing appears to have been delayed and is not now expected until sometime in August. Two weeks ago, Tom Wall wrote directly to the Chairman of ABP, John O'Connor, asking for the Bord’s support. At the March hearing into the service area proposal, the local interests, along with representatives of the Road Hauliers Association, provided detailed submissions in support of the local alternative.

All local public representatives have supported the provision of a Kilgowan exit ramp. But appeals to the Minister for Transport, Mr Dempsey, and to the top levels of the NRA, have apparently gone unheeded.

Tom Wall and Seamus O’Reilly emphasise that they and the others they represent in the campaign are completely in favour of the motorway.

“But it doesn’t make sense in these times to needlessly throw away jobs,” Tom Wall says. “We know that even with the ramp all of us on this stretch will lose a significant amount of current business. But the ramp would give us a fighting chance of survival.”



Seamus O’Reilly notes that his staff are always very keen to work even from very early hours, but if access to the stretch is cut off, he will inevitably have to cut staff. “Some of them have been with me for over 20 years,” he says.

Brian Byrne.

(This article was first published in last week's edition of the Kildare Nationalist.)