Third bridge to ease Fermoy congestion ruled out

The probability of another bridge crossing the Blackwater in Fermoy is highly unlikely, as the chronic condition of the town’s rush-hour traffic came up for discussion at a meeting of Cork County Council’s Northern Committee on Monday.

Cllr Noel McCarthy was adamant that Fermoy would not get a reputation as a bottleneck: “People avoid coming to Fermoy because of the traffic and we don’t want to hear that”, he said, adding that a journey through town that should take 5 or 10 minutes could potentiallytake 30 minutes or longer.

Speaking for the council, Niall Healy, director of the roads division, told the elected representatives that the issue of traffic in the town had not been on the council’s radar recently, but it was time to ‘start the conversation’ with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, acknowledging the increased traffic and business that was going to come, both with the new Tesco supermarket at the bottom of the town and the planned Mallow-Dungarvan greenway.

Full story in this week’s Print & Digital Edition