Celbridge Main St

Davidth88

Noticed that the road works was getting some publicity in the Bus thread , figured this might be a better place to discuss it.

My two pence worth

a) The guys who are doing the work are doing an fantastic job keeping things moving and keeping the place tidy.
b) The new colour on the road will look really smart
c) Not sure about the traffic islands , already seen a near miss with a bike and a car who thought he could bully his way past while going through the islands, could they not have put a cycle gap in there or something ?
d) The new surface to Haven looks very smart , but I hope they paid for the fact the culvert had collapsed , this is because the low-loaders have no place on the high st really Haven should have been asked to move to the N4 junction business park or something.
e) Shame they didn't do the whole st right down to St Rapheals ..... or are there plans ?

I love the way you would think that a certain TD is out there with his shovel judging by his social media :-)

All in all I think a huge improvement .

mloc123

Davidth88 wrote: »

Noticed that the road works was getting some publicity in the Bus thread , figured this might be a better place to discuss it.

My two pence worth

a) The guys who are doing the work are doing an fantastic job keeping things moving and keeping the place tidy.
b) The new colour on the road will look really smart
c) Not sure about the traffic islands , already seen a near miss with a bike and a car who thought he could bully his way past while going through the islands, could they not have put a cycle gap in there or something ?
d) The new surface to Haven looks very smart , but I hope they paid for the fact the culvert had collapsed , this is because the low-loaders have no place on the high st really Haven should have been asked to move to the N4 junction business park or something.
e) Shame they didn't do the whole st right down to St Rapheals ..... or are there plans ?

I love the way you would think that a certain TD is out there with his shovel judging by his social media :-)

All in all I think a huge improvement .

Sure Frank is down there every day, shovelling tarmac

I agree on the islands, it creates a tight pinch point that cars will try to squeeze by bikes on. I am not sure why they are needed.

seamusk84

I’m liking the new street lighting poles too. Will they be putting those on the other side of Main Street too?
Currently they just run down the Carry Out side.

Riskymove

seamusk84 wrote: »

I’m liking the new street lighting poles too. Will they be putting those on the other side of Main Street too?
Currently they just run down the Carry Out side.

yes they are working on the other side of the street now

Joe Public

Davidth88 wrote: »

e) Shame they didn't do the whole st right down to St Rapheals ..... or are there plans ?

I love the way you would think that a certain TD is out there with his shovel judging by his social media :-)

All in all I think a huge improvement .

Frank needs to push for more money to get the stretch by the mill done in the next phase. We have been waiting a long long time for someone who can get things done.

L1011

Frank can push all he wants, he had zero influence on this happening. Opposition TD in a neutered party. Not allowed even be opposition.

He's running short on other peoples things to be photographed by recently even. Needs to find a few more building sites to park trailers on for the impending election...

Joe Public

L1011 wrote: »

Frank can push all he wants, he had zero influence on this happening. Opposition TD in a neutered party. Not allowed even be opposition.

He's running short on other peoples things to be photographed by recently even. Needs to find a few more building sites to park trailers on for the impending election...

Do you think the Main St. upgrades over the past few years just happened all by themselves? Frank started the whole process as a councillor and got eircom ( now eir ) and KCC talking and then pushed for funding to get the eircom wiring underground. He has continued the process with the electricity wiring etc.
The other councillors have since come on board to support the projects so everything is now going in the right direction.

L1011

You may want to stop taking councillors press releases as the truth

Joe Public

L1011 wrote: »

You may want to stop taking councillors press releases as the truth

I have been at the coal face for a long time, where have you been?

L1011

Joe Public wrote: »

I have been at the coal face for a long time, where have you been?

Not believing hyperbolic press releases by media obsessed councillors who somehow have the local media eating out of their hands. Free content in the form of pressers and photos is very attractive to cash starved papers and gives people the wrong impression.

Take some time to understand how councils, particularly Kildare, work and the influence of the local engineers and the Director of Services in terms of what happens. O'Rourke makes grand claims of stuff he had zero impact on and sometimes of a totally deleterious effect on the town - the lights at Maxol for instance. If he really wants to continuing claiming they're all down to him, good luck getting votes from anyone in a further out estate....

Stuff is getting done again because there is money around again. That is not down to O'Rourke or FF. Stuff stopped getting done due to FF driving the economy off a cliff at a rate far beyond the expected impact of a global crisis, though. Money ran out due to FFs rebasing of the entire taxation system to become reliant on bulky purchase taxation - VRT, stamp duty and VAT.

Joe Public

L1011 wrote: »

Not believing hyperbolic press releases by media obsessed councillors who somehow have the local media eating out of their hands. Free content in the form of pressers and photos is very attractive to cash starved papers and gives people the wrong impression.

Take some time to understand how councils, particularly Kildare, work and the influence of the local engineers and the Director of Services in terms of what happens. O'Rourke makes grand claims of stuff he had zero impact on and sometimes of a totally deleterious effect on the town - the lights at Maxol for instance. If he really wants to continuing claiming they're all down to him, good luck getting votes from anyone in a further out estate....

Stuff is getting done again because there is money around again. That is not down to O'Rourke or FF. Stuff stopped getting done due to FF driving the economy off a cliff at a rate far beyond the expected impact of a global crisis, though. Money ran out due to FFs rebasing of the entire taxation system to become reliant on bulky purchase taxation - VRT, stamp duty and VAT.

Luckily enough I'm not influenced by the media and/or press releases, I just know what's been happening and the people who are getting things done. There was plenty of money around pre. 2007 but nobody with the drive to channel it towards Celbridge.
Grand claims are part and parcel of being political and they are always trying to get one up on the other, they have to play that game whether they like it or not as a large proportion of the population read and listen to the news.

L1011

Dig in to everything O'Rourke claims he did and you'll find he had little to nothing to do with it. He is damn good at getting the local press to photograph him beside something. Council minutes are easily available, for starters.

He'll lose his Dail seat next time out anyway, party on the ground don't support him (compare the councillor in every area on Lawlor's leaflets to, well, nobody on his) and the swing vote to FF last time will retreat heavily from him due to his 8th stance. Add to the growing list of one-term FFers in the area.

Joe Public

L1011 wrote: »

Dig in to everything O'Rourke claims he did and you'll find he had little to nothing to do with it. He is damn good at getting the local press to photograph him beside something. Council minutes are easily available, for starters.

He'll lose his Dail seat next time out anyway, party on the ground don't support him (compare the councillor in every area on Lawlor's leaflets to, well, nobody on his) and the swing vote to FF last time will retreat heavily from him due to his 8th stance. Add to the growing list of one-term FFers in the area.

I'm not really interested in what might or might not happen in the future, it's what is happening now that is the reality of the situation. More good has happened in Celbridge in the last 5 years, or so, than has happened in the previous 20 and that is reality. It's not all down to Frank but he is a major catalyst in getting all the groups moving in a coherent direction.

Joe Public

Who is Lawlor?

Hockney

Main St looks fantastic, but I wonder will they be taking that monstrosity of a final pole from the corner outside Bank of Ireland?

Getting rid of it would be a big improvement on the view coming across the bridge.

L1011

Joe Public wrote: »

I'm not really interested in what might or might not happen in the future, it's what is happening now that is the reality of the situation. More good has happened in Celbridge in the last 5 years, or so, than has happened in the previous 20 and that is reality. It's not all down to Frank but he is a major catalyst in getting all the groups moving in a coherent direction.

He really has had far less influence than you are willing to believe. KCC has money and has finally realised they need to spend some in the North of the county. That's it. He'd get his photo taken beside a new nuclear power station and claim credit if there was one opening.

Joe Public wrote: »

Who is Lawlor?

The other FF TD for Kildare North, Naas based with a second office in Maynooth.

Joe Public

Hockney wrote: »

Main St looks fantastic, but I wonder will they be taking that monstrosity of a final pole from the corner outside Bank of Ireland?

Getting rid of it would be a big improvement on the view coming across the bridge.

That pole has to stay until English Row is being done as it's feeding that section.

Joe Public

L1011 wrote: »

He really has had far less influence than you are willing to believe. KCC has money and has finally realised they need to spend some in the North of the county. That's it. He'd get his photo taken beside a new nuclear power station and claim credit if there was one opening.



The other FF TD for Kildare North, Naas based with a second office in Maynooth.

Probably James Lawless you are thinking of, hard to remember his name when he has done little around here.

L1011

Lawless, yes. Such is the relevance of FF here that I can only remember part of the TDs name.

He's done as much or more than O'Rourke, at least he hasn't damaged the environment by getting ridiculous tshirts printed to hang in his office windows.

Joe Public

Don't think it matters what party the local TD is, he is just a driving force and that's what gets things done. Every town should have one!

Joe Public

L1011 wrote: »

Lawless, yes. Such is the relevance of FF here that I can only remember part of the TDs name.

He's done as much or more than O'Rourke, at least he hasn't damaged the environment by getting ridiculous tshirts printed to hang in his office windows.

Yeah, them t-shirts are killing the local biodiversity :rolleyes:

mloc123

I don't know how much influence Frank has... but I have emailed him a handful of times to ask about issues and he has been very responsive and helpful each time.

KCC have been out putting new wooden bollards along the Clane road opposite the schools, from what I gather he has helped push this a lot in the past 6 months. It is parish pump stuff but... maybe we need some parish pump to get things done in the area. KCC certainly do not care about the north of the county.. just look at their response to the snowfall in March.

Joe Public

mloc123 wrote: »

I don't know how much influence Frank has... but I have emailed him a handful of times to ask about issues and he has been very responsive and helpful each time.

KCC have been out putting new wooden bollards along the Clane road opposite the schools, from what I gather he has helped push this a lot in the past 6 months. It is parish pump stuff but... maybe we need some parish pump to get things done in the area. KCC certainly do not care about the north of the county.. just look at their response to the snowfall in March.

KCC have been looking after us fairly well in the last few years, things have changed. The snow was an extreme event and their response all over was as good as they could have managed.