Council pushes forward with new Birr distributor road plan

Offaly County Council is seeking to push on with plans to create a new distributor road linking the N52 (Birr to Tullamore Road) with the R439 (Birr to Banagher Road).

The council is currently seeking to procure and appoint Engineering Consultancy Services to design, tender and award the road scheme which received planning approval in 2020.

The new road will involve the construction of some 380 metres of single carriageway, 15 metres in width. Also planned are approximately 760m of footpaths (two metres wide) and 760m of cyclepaths (1.5 metre wide).

The distributor road is designed to commence at one end at Woodlands, at the existing road off the Birr to Tullamore Road, which serves as an access road to the Lidl store in the town.

The road will commence on the other end at Cappaneale, a couple of hundred metres past St Brendan's Community School, at a point 30 metres or so inside the 50/80kph speed limit signs.

The project will also include the creation of two traffic light junctions as well as the provision of kerbing, drainage, services, public lighting, landscaping and boundary treatment.

The council says the project will open up backland development for further development and relieve congestion in Birr town by providing an alternative to the existing route through the town.

It views the provision of the distributor road as critical to the future development of Birr.

It believes the road will not only relieve congestion by providing an alternative to the existing routes through the town, but it will also open up zoned development lands, provide better access to St Brendan’s Secondary school and allow the tourism potential offered by Birr Castle and the town’s historic and unique Georgian centre to be realised.