Galway Bay fm newsroom – The selection of a route for the proposed new south Connemara road from Barna to Screebe is to be re-assessed next year.
A meeting of the Connemara district councillors has been told that consultants are coming on board to come up with new proposals.
Previous proposals by consultants in regard to the preferred route have caused widespread controversy.
A few decades ago, people went to prison for withholding their car tax in protest at the state of the roads in Connemara.
A new road from Barna to Screebe seemed like the solution.
However, the terrain is hemmed in nowadays by Special Areas of Conservation and that means that it is very difficult to get the road where the community and Connemara Councillors want it to go – that is a distance north of the villages and townlands.
8 different routes have been suggested.
They remain on the map with the added complication that planning permission will not be given in the vicinity of these possible routes.
Yesterday, Councillors were told that the consultants would be back in the second quarter of next year in an effort to find a route that will break the logjam – but given the tone of the debate it could be a long road ahead in South Connemara.