Under Grounding of Wiring in Celbridge

Joe Public

At long last it is happening, work has commenced starting from the Castletown Gates end. Under grounding of all wiring along with lining the street with trees was meant to happen as part of the village renewal scheme around the start of this century.

From Catherine Murphy's notes:-
"Celbridge Renewal Scheme – what outstanding works remain?
There is considerable annoyance in Celbridge that the plan drawn up in the late 1990’s by Shaffrey & Associates was not fully implemented. There is particular concern about the fact that ducting was provided in order to underground ugly overhead cables, however that never occurred. Maynooth and Leixlip both benefited from a once off grant when the M4 opened which allowed for the refurbishment of both Main Streets, including under grounding most of the cables. Because Main Street Celbridge was not directly by-passed the town had to rely on a lesser Urban Renewal Grant which was insufficient to do all the work specified in the Shaffrey Plan"

Prior to the village renewal the Main St. and footpaths were very rough with no paving slabs. It's hard to believe what things used to be like prior to the turn of the century, the footpaths were about a foot above the road in many places and the footpath edges were poorly defined. There were little to no street markings and cars used to frequently double park, it was a bit like the wild west.

The current work is being carried out in phases and concentrating on the eircom wiring only. The first phase will see the removal of three eircom poles starting from the Castletown gates, wiring has to be ducted across the Main Rd. to serve the buildings opposite.

Funding for the second phase is being negotiated with KCC. The second phase will see the removal of the famous, or infamous, eircom distribution pole outside Blakes Pharmacy.

This is the start of hopefully a full completion of the original village renewal scheme as in the "Shaffrey Plan". If the ESB, or whatever they are called now, eventually row in then we will be on the way to getting a much prettier Main St. Money is still a big stumbling block but at least the wheels are moving.

Much thanks to councillor Frank O'Rourke for getting this project off the ground and organising meetings with eircom and KCC and pulling the whole lot together. Frank was approached by the Tidy Towns shortly after taking up his post and asked to make the completion of the village renewal plan his number one priority, Frank didn't disappoint and never lost sight of the plan.

Davidth88

Great news !

Germancarfan

nice one. Is all the ducting all ready in place or are road digs likely ?

n97 mini

Hopefully something can be done about that awful thick heavy pebble dash on most of the buildings in Celbridge next! And when Celbridge is done, they should move on to Leixlip!

dobsdave

Was just looking at the telegraph post today, thats a lot of cable!