Phase two of major Limerick road project is put in doubt by Transport Minister

TRANSPORT Minister Eamon Ryan has described a planned new orbital route around Limerick as “unsustainable” and “uneconomic”.

While the first phase of the Northern Distributor Road, between Coonagh and Knockalisheen via Moyross could be open by the summer, the second phase is now in serious doubt following the Green Party leader’s intervention.

Under proposals approved by councillors, the project would see the road continue from Knockalisheen, cross the Shannon, bypass Corbally and traverse the Mountshannon Road before continuing to the Cappamore Junction and the Dublin Road.

A spur is proposed across the Mulcair River to provide a link to the National Technology Park, while it’s hoped the road would link up to the M7 motorway.

The link is seen as vital, with both the Limerick Chamber, and opposition TDs urging support for the road after it was left out of the National Development Plan (NDP) last year.

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They argued it will relieve congestion in the city centre, as well as being an attractor for firms wishing to invest in the National Technology Park. It is also seen as important for the University of Limerick’s plans to develop on the Clare side of its campus.

But Mr Ryan said: “My clear view is the Northern Distributor Road would take Limerick in a completely different direction into Clare. I acknowledge the college and the businesses upstream along the River Shannon will want to do that and will see that as an appropriate development. But we cannot say we will build back the centre of the core of Limerick, and build around public transport and at the same time, extend into Clare on a roads-based system, which can only accentuate or continue a dispersed, unsustainable development model.”

He added: “Taking an alternative route on an unsustainable, uneconomic basis, without good transport planning in regard to the roads in County Clare would be the last thing we should do.”

Mr Ryan’s comments, and it’s lack of inclusion in the NDP appear to rule out the road in the medium term. But a new government could reactivate the plan, in a similar way to the Limerick-Cork motorway, initially scrapped at the height of the recession in 2011.