Public Consultation for
the Constraints Stage was undertaken through exhibitions at Victoria Hotel,
Macroom and at Ballincollig Rugby Football Club on 29 and 30 January 2001,
respectively. A brochure was also
produced and made available at the exhibitions. The brochure could also be obtained from the CCC offices in
Ballincollig and Macroom, and from the National Roads Office, Glanmire. A questionnaire was provided with the
brochure. A report on this Public
Consultation and the responses to the Constraints Study Questionnaire are
included in the Constraints Report
An A5 leaflet advising the
location and time of the presentations was delivered to all households within,
and to the outskirts, of the Study Area.
The leaflet also gave a brief outline of the project, a copy of which is
included in Appendix 2. 5000 leaflets were given to An Post for
distribution throughout the area and an advertisement for the presentations was
also published in the The Corkman newspaper
The Second Public
Consultation to present the route corridor option was held between 1300hrs and
2000hrs over three days at the following venues:
|
The Victoria Hotel,
Macroom |
Tuesday 26th
June 2001 |
|
The Abbey Hotel,
Ballyvourney |
Wednesday 27th
June 2001 |
|
Ballincollig Rugby
Football Club |
Thursday 28th
June 2001 |
There were approximately
1400 attendees over the three day period of the public consultations. The largest attendance was at The Victoria Hotel,
Macroom, where nearly 700 attendees signed the register.
The presentation consisted
of 7 large maps displaying the route options.
The plans showed:
· 1:50,000 Discovery OS Series showing the route
options and primary constraints.
· 1:50,000 Discovery OS Series showing the route
options and all constraints identified during the constraints study.
· 1:50,000 Discovery OS Series showing accidents for
years 1990-2000.
· OS 6 inch mapping highlighting the topography and
hydrology of the area.
· 1:50,000 Discovery OS Series showing geology of the
area.
· 1:50,000 Discovery OS Series showing the route
options together with those that had been considered, but which were not
determined as viable at this stage.
· Large scale plan showing the existing vertical
outline along the centre line of the proposed route corridors together with
standard cross-sections for standard dual carriageway, wide single carriageway
and wide single carriageway with climbing lane.
Two other A1 size boards
were presented, these were a welcome board and a board showing the process and
timing of the proposed road scheme.
An additional consultation
was given to the members of Macroom Urban District Council on the evening of 25th
June 2001 at the Victoria Hotel, Macroom.
People who attended the
Second Public Consultation were given an information brochure regarding the
proposed route options, and were also asked to fill out a questionnaire issued
with the brochure. The information
brochure requested feedback and comments related to the route corridor
options. A copy of the information
brochure and questionnaire is included in Appendix
2. The brochures and questionnaires
were also made available from Cork County Council offices in Ballincollig and
Macroom, and from the National Roads Office, Glanmire.
2778 responses to the
questionnaire had been received by 20 October 2001.
The questionnaire included
a section requesting any information or comments about the proposed route
corridors. The issues raised in this
section included:
· Increased noise and pollution
· Questioning the need for a dual carriageway
· Concern about farm viability and access
· Severance of the communities and facilities
· Access to the proposed road
· Fog
· Areas of local amenities and importance
· Destruction of the environment
· Destruction of Archaeological heritage
· Devaluation of house prices
· Compensation
· Previous compulsory purchase for the Inishcarra
Reservoir and N22 improvements
A selection of the comments is
given in Appendix 2.
Questionnaire responses
were generally received from individuals but there were responses from the
following groups:
· Cappagh West Residents
· Aghinagh Heritage Group
· Macroom District Environment Group
As the proposed routes
converge at several points and there is scope to combine them, the routes were
broken down into 13 segments within the brochure.
Specific questions were
included in the questionnaire in order to gain the views of the public to the
proposed route corridors. The questions
were:
· Do you own, rent or occupy a property which is
on/adjacent to any of the route options?
· If yes (to above), please state route colour &
segment number?
· For each segment: Do you support, have no opinion
or oppose the proposal?
A graphic representation
of the results is shown in Appendix 2. Where no tick was placed in any of the boxes
for ‘support’, ‘no opinion’ or ‘opposed’, the result from the respondee is
assumed to be ‘no opinion’. The results can be used to see trends in the
responses. However, it should be taken
into account that the analysis of the location of the responses cannot be
extracted to any degree of accuracy due to the following reasons:
· Proximity to the corridor is a subjective response
· Properties or land ownership can be adjacent to
more than one route
· Properties within the converging areas e.g.
Ballyvourney, Macroom and Ovens are affected by all the proposed routes.
· Locations of responses cannot be accurately
identified from the addresses given, as, due to the rural nature of the area,
address is given by nearest village only.
· Petitions received from action groups were
registered as one response and, therefore, are not reflected in the analysis of
the questionnaire responses.
Trends that can be
established from the results shown in Appendix 2
are:
· support for any of the routes was not significant
but it can be seen that there is significant opposition to routes away from the
existing alignment (Yellow).
· 34% of respondees living adjacent to segment 5
supported that proposal
· 20% of repondees living adjacent to segment 4
supported that proposal
· segments 3, 8, 9, 10 and 13 had highest opposition
(900+) from respondents living adjacent to other segments
· segments 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, and 13 had the highest
total (in excess of 1363) objectors
· the segments with the greatest number of respondees
were 4 (24%) 11(12%), 7 (9%) and 9 (8%).
· segments 5, 6, and 7 had similar numbers of
respondees opposing the scheme as supporting the scheme.
Submissions were also
received from the following groups listed below:
·
Bride Valley Group
·
Pro-Yellow Route Action Group
·
Macroom District Environmental Group
·
Bride and Lee Valley Road Groups
·
Red Route Group,
·
The Yellow Route Group
·
Coachford Historical Society
·
Lee Valley Protection Campaign
·
Lower Dunisky
·
Canovee & Carrigadrohid Community
·
Blue section 10
·
Coiste Slí Mullach an Ois, Sliabh-Riach
·
Submissions have also been submitted by individuals and families.
By 1 March 2001, 189 submissions (excluding re-submissions and
appendices) from groups and individuals had been submitted, in addition to the
responses to the Questionnaire. They have highlighted many areas of concern to the
local residents and information that is relevant to the route selection
process. These include local amenities,
places of local importance, local marches and weather conditions.
Petitions were received as
follows:
|
|
No. of signatures |
|
Opposition to routes in
the Lee Valley |
1587 |
|
Opposition to Blue Route |
609 |
|
Opposition to Yellow
Route |
180 |
|
Opposition to Red Route |
393 |
|
Clondrohid Route Action
Group |
218 |
The numbers of signatures
on the petitions must be viewed in the context of how the information was
collected. In some cases just the local
residents signatures were collected, in others tourist and individuals living
outside the area have signed. This by
no means affects the feeling of the individual or individuals opposing the
scheme. In some cases petitions were
completed by one individual on behalf of others; this represented less than 2%
of the total number of signatures.
An
additional notice was issued in the first week of November 2001 that showed
extended corridors in the Ovens and Lissarda areas. The brochure and plans are given in Appendix
2.
The public consultation
with landowners and the exhibition of the preferred corridor and preliminary
routes within the options considered was held in April 2002, after the
publication of this report in draft.
The feedback and review of this on the preferred route corridor is
detailed in Section 23.
A presentation was made to
councillors at Macroom Town Hall on Tuesday 2nd April 2002 at
11:30hrs.
The following drawings
were presented to the councillors
· Emerging Preferred Route on Aerial photography
background showing the 300m corridor and feasibility design. Scale 1:10,000.
· Emerging Preferred Route (EPR) with constraints on
aerial photography background, showing the 300m corridor and feasibility
design. Scale 1:10,000.
· Vertical Profile displayed below panels for EPR and
EPR with Constraints Drawings (listed above).
Horizontal scale 1:10,000.
· All corridors considered in the Route Selection
Report (displayed as 300m wide corridors with EPR in Yellow and other routes in
grey) with aerial photography background.
Scale 1:25,000.
· All corridors considered in the Route Selection
Report (displayed as 300m wide corridors with EPR in Yellow and other routes in
grey) with OS Mapping background, showing.
Scale 1:25,000.
· Standard carriageway cross - sections. Not to scale.
· Traffic diagram showing current traffic and design
year traffic for “do nothing” scenario and EPR. Not to scale.
Meetings were held with landowners
likely to be affected by the scheme during the week of 8th to 12th
April 2002 at Macroom Town Hall.
The same drawings from the
presentation to councillors were on display for the meetings with landowners.
Ownership of the plots was
established from Land Registry and was supplemented by information received
following the second public consultation and from old rates maps from Cork
County Council.
The landowners were
allocated meeting times and were posted an invitation letter to attend and a
copy of the public notification brochure (see section 2.3.3), which shows the
EPR. Contact numbers were given in
order that meetings could be rearranged if inconvenient. The letters also enclosed a questionnaire
and aerial photography plan identifying the plot in question.
Landowners selected for
this initial set of meetings were those with lands within the footprint of the
feasibility design and those with residential properties on the extent of the
fenceline for the feasibility design.
Those landowners with lands that may be affected by the proposed
junctions were also invited.
There were approximately
120 attendees at the meetings.
The intention of the
landowner meetings was to establish contacts with those likely to be directly
affected by the project, to discuss the effects of the proposed route and the
process of scheme development including land purchase. The meetings gave the opportunity to begin
discussion on possible mitigation measures.
As a result of the meetings, a number of alternative alignments were put
forward by the attendees which will be investigated as part of the preliminary
design. Some of these suggested routes
were outside the 300m wide corridor.
Information was also gathered
about location of utilities (water supply, sewage disposal, electricity supply
etc.), physical features and about access.
If the land potentially affected was farmland, information was obtained
about the size of the holding and farm working.
An A5 fold out brochure
was produced which gave details of the public exhibitions and some basic
details about the emerging preferred route.
The brochure was distributed to properties within the study area from a
list acquired through An Post of residents and commercial businesses. The list was extended to include contacts
from the second public consultation.
Advertisements for the
public exhibition were also placed in newspapers.
The exhibition to present
the route corridor option was held between 1300hrs and 2000hrs over three days
at the following venues:
|
The Victoria Hotel
Macroom |
Tuesday 16th
April 2002 |
|
The Abbey Hotel
Ballyvourney |
Wednesday 17th
April 2002 |
|
Ovens GAA Club
(Knockanemore) |
Thursday 18th
April 2002 |
The drawings presented at
the exhibitions were the same as those presented at the presentation to
councillors on 2nd April 2002.
Approximately 520
attendees signed the attendance register over the three-day period of the public
exhibitions.