COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

south dublin county council crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, February 11, 2013

MOTION NO. 3

MOTION: Councillor C. King

Mayor's Business

That this Council calls on the Manager to provide a report (a) outlining the overall cost of the project of erecting thousands of 'L' Local Road signs throughout the County, (b) who received the contract for the signs themselves and (c) who received the contract for the many thousands of galvanised poles that accompany the signs. Understanding this project was not funded or proposed by SDCC, I believe the scale of the works and the apparent unnessecary erection of thousands of these signs indicating local Road numbers within Housing Estates where established street names have existed for decades seems complete nonsense and a complete waste of Public money in a time of deep hardship and recession.

REPORT:

This Council does not have a countywide programme to install Local Road signs, the Council is obliged however to allocate road numbers to each road within the County  as part of its obligations to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and to maintain a road schedule notwithstanding the use of local road/street names. The Council is working on a Regional Road signage programme which is grants funded by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. As part of this programme signage at junctions with local roads by their respective numbers is being put in place. This is done to ensure a uniformity of approach to regional road signage across the country.  This is advantageous in those areas where there may be several local names particularly in rural and semi-rural locations. In terms of the costs, the Council on notification of a grant allocation for particular Regional road signage schemes designs the signage scheme in accordance with department regulations and size criteria.  The scheme is then tendered on the basis of supply and erection with associated site costs.  A contractor is then appointed to carry out the entirety of the work on a particular regional road.  It is not possible to separate out the costs of the total provision of the Local road signs as they would form a small part (approx. 7%) of the overall tender and economies of scale would apply.  Monies expended on regional road signage over the past number of years was as follows

2010  €174,096 

2011  €199,488

2012   €200,253

A grant of €200,000 has been allocated in 2013 to complete the Regional Road signage programme in the County.  A single Local road plate number and associated poles would be supplied and fitted for approximately  €100.