Hedge in Portlaoise Celtic Tiger estate 'destroyed'

Rapidly growing ‘invasive’ laurel that was planted as a boundary in a Portlaoise housing estate has been damaged with a call to replace it with native trees.

The Fairgreen housing estate on the Mountmellick Road has hundreds of houses, backing onto the western relief road around the town.

Cllr Tommy Mulligan tabled a motion to the September meeting of Portlaoise Municipal District, asking the council to work with Portlaoise Tidy Towns and replace the “damaged and deteriorated hedging”.

He explained the problem.

“The hedge is as you travel from Circle K around the Ballyfin Road. When the estate was initially built, that was all laurel hedging and it acted as a sound barrier. Over the years unfortunately it has been destroyed and damaged. Some of it has been removed.

“So you’re leaving wide open sections on that stretch of the road. It’s affecting the residents in Gandon Close.

“They have to contend with the noise and traffic passing. There’s a lack of privacy, people can look into the estate. Also the optics aren’t good. That road has a huge volume of traffic. It gives a negative impression for that side of town.

“The good news is I have been chatting with Tidy Towns and we all know they are fantastic and do incredible work. They are happy to engage with housing estates in the town, especially around the line of planting hedging and trees. I think they’ll be more than happy to engage with Laois County Council on this. Their strong mantra is native hedging so it won’t be laurels. Can the council tie in?” he asked.

Cllr Caroline Dwane Stanley supported the motion.

“I remember the shrubbery planted at the time was very invasive. It closed in that whole area. The problem is there’s a pathway, a shortcut for people to come out onto the ring road. I suspect that some of the residents removed sections around safety issues, because, as teens will, they were drinking.

“Then a bright spark decided to start driving out onto the road and we had to put bollards in. I would like to see something native. The laurels are unfortunately very invasive, they block out the sound. When you look at the ring road there was junk and foundations left there by the builders, and they just planted grass seed and laurels. By trying to deal with one problem unfortunately we created another problem. Its left sections removed,” she said.

In reply, the Portlaoise MD engineer Wes Wilkinson said he will meet Cllr Mulligan on site to examine the issue.