Councillor "disappointed" with KCC decision not to ban HGVs from Main Street, Clane

A Maynooth Labour councillor has said she is “disappointed” at Kildare County Council's refusal to implement a HGV ban on Main Street, Clane.

Cllr Angela Feeney put forward her motion to ban HGVs from Main Street at a meeting of Clane-Maynooth Municipal District on Friday December 6 2024.

Cllr Feeney told the Leinster Leader this week she was requesting a HGV ban in Clane due to rising congestion in the town, and for safety reasons.

She said: “I was looking for a ban because anyone who's trying to drive through Clane recently, it's absolutely totally congested, at any time of the day there's queues of traffic going into Clane.

“I think that's because, since the Sallins bypass, which is a great addition to roads, but now it's moved the problem up the road and all the traffic is coming down from that bypass into Clane, including the HGVs.”

“A lot of people complain about the 139 bus being regularly delayed because that's coming from Naas to go through Clane, and it's just stuck in traffic as well. So the HGVs coming through the town I said would be one of the solutions to alleviate traffic a little bit.”

According to Cllr Feeney, the traffic problem in Clane has been slowly building up over the last two years or so, but for the last 12 months has been particularly bad.

The general election candidate said the issue came up on the doors while canvassing in recent weeks.

She added: “It came up on the doors for me when I was out canvassing, Clane as you know is in the constituency, and the one thing that kept coming up on the doors was people asking can you do anything about the congestion and the traffic in Clane.

“The main street is getting so congested, but it's a narrow enough main street and there's been a few near-misses where HGVs have had to negotiate their way up a very narrow street, while pedestrians try to make their way through it.

“There's been a few near-misses and people are worried about their safety as well.”

A report issued by the council stated that Cllr Feeney's motion was 'premature'.

The report stated: 'This request is premature pending the opening of the Capdoo Relief Road

and detailed consideration of the impact of such a restriction and the associated road

upgrades that would be required to implement a HGV restriction.

'At present there is neither the funding nor the resources in place to progress a project of this nature.'

Cllr Feeney said: “I was disappointed with the council's response, because they're saying that it's premature until the Capdoo road is finished. But I said to them at the meeting, well, can you tell me any timeline on that? And they said they didn't know if they'd have funding for that.

“They're more or less saying that the answer to the problem is down the road, but they couldn't even give me a definite timeline on it.”

The Maynooth Labour councillor concluded: “That's disappointing, because at least if you could go back to people and say, look, we can't ban HGVs at the moment until that relief road is in place, but yet they're not giving us any timeline and they're not even guaranteeing that there'll be funding for that.

“You're talking a lot of years down the road, so people in Clane, and people going through Clane are going to have to put up with this issue and it's only going to get worse in my view.”