Waterford residents ‘upset’ at lack of public consultation on bus infrastructure
Cllr Niamh O’Donovan spoke on the subject at the July plenary meeting of Waterford City and County Council
There has been “some upset” among residents in County Waterford due to a lack of public consultation on newly introduced bus infrastructure, a council meeting has heard.
Fine Gael councillor Niamh O’Donovan spoke on the subject at the July plenary meeting of Waterford City and County Council.
Cllr O’Donovan said: “Following the installation of Local Link infrastructure across Waterford, which is welcome and provides a very fine service, it has caused some upset in areas.
“Look, when a positive like this becomes a negative due to lack of community consultation, I am a little bit kind of annoyed.
“I know public consultations are time consuming, but when we’ll be out looking at the little wins, we think a little bit of communication would save a lot of phone calls and frustration in small rural villages and towns.”
She concluded by saying that consultation is important when new infrastructure is put in and changes are made to local services.
In response to Cllr O’Donovan, Director of Services Gabriel Hynes said that the council takes all public consultation on board.
Mr Hynes said: “In relation to the public consultation, yeah, I 100 per cent agree with you.
“Any works we do, we’ll certainly be consulting with yourselves, also with community groups.
“We certainly welcome that and will welcome feedback in relation to every group.”
He went on to further highlight the importance of public consultation to the council.
“Consultation is something that we treat very importantly and we encourage people to make submissions and get involved.
“It’s only by all of us working together that we can come up with the right solution to a project that we are proposing.”
Mr Hynes’ comments came just three weeks after it was revealed that an Active Travel scheme is set to proceed in a rural part of the county, despite widespread opposition.