Loophole could block Laois laneway repair grant scheme

There is good news and bad for the 65 Laois private roads and lanes awaiting a Government grant to cover repairs.

Laois recently received €508,397 from the Government to fund its Local Improvement Scheme, whereby residents can apply and get most of the cost of resurfacing a private lane to their houses and businesses.

However one big loophole has been pointed out by Laois councillors, in the recently changed application rules.

Anyone with land off the lane can refuse permission if so inclined, and scupper the project. It affects every county, not just Laois.

Director of Services for Roads in Laois is Simon Walton. He confirms the change that leaves applications open for rejection.

"If say eight property owners want the lane, even if only five pay up, they all have to sign their consent. There have been specific objections by property owners of work being done," he said.

He said that the recent rule change has made some of the applications sitting waiting for funding, ineligible.

"I will take it up with the department. It appears unfair if they comply at the date of application and then the rule changed rendering them ineligible. A number of these are private roads, the rights local authories have on public roads are not applicable. All of the registered owners must give their consent to complete the scheme. if we don't have them all, we can't go ahead, or a portion of the road can't go ahead," he said.

Cllr Wilie Aird says he "won't allow it".

"It's the first time I've seen this happen. It's one thing not giving a contribution, but if we are having someone say 'sorry, I'm not letting this happen', I won't allow that to creep in. Before if one person refused to pay their allocation and others threw in extra it was done," he said.

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In total this year Laois got €860,277 to fund the LIS scheme, hoped to cover another 14 lanes for repairs.

There were 40 lanes repaired with the grants across the county in the past 18 months. There are 65 still on the waiting list. Of those 33 are in the Borris-in-Ossory Municipal District, 24 in the Portarlington Graiguecullen MD and eight in the Portlaoise MD.

It is a catch up on the scheme. LIS funding was suspended for years after the economic crash. The council began by funding the oldest lanes on the waiting list, which dated back 12 years, and is now working on applications made in 2019.

Cllr Conor Bergin had sought the update, in a motion to the September council meeting.

"The extra €500,000 is very welcome. I commend the roads office for reducing the waiting list. It was going back 12 years. It's hard to measure the benefit in rural areas. People wait years for this, it's once in a generation to see them done. I hope you get them all finished," he said.