Several councillors question quality of road repair works by Donegal County Council

A number of Councillors have raised concerns regarding the quality of road repair works being carried out by Donegal County Council under the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS).

The matter was raised at this week's meeting of the Lifford-Stranorlar Municipal District Council, as several Councillors questioned the materials that will be used to repair roads and fill potholes in the east of the county.

Councillor Martin Scanlon raised concerns that under LIS plans circulated amongst members, the Lifford-Stranorlar MD was to use a combination of wet mix and chip and tar on some roads - a combination which he attributed to a number of road repairs failing last year.

As Councillors discussed the passing of the list of roads to be repaired under the 2026 LIS scheme in Donegal, Cllr Scanlon said that the use of wet mix would be a sticking point.

"Following the motions that were brought in at MD and Plenary (levels) regarding the use of wet mix I would not agreeable... I would be agreeable to the list but not with the use of wet mix and tar and chip in it, not after what we saw last year and the failures of it, think we're going backwards with our roads programme by using wet mix. I would ask the other members to support that."

Cllr Scanlon also raised the issue of a prior road repair outside Glenfin Chapel failing, asking Adrian McCool from the Council's road section about the possible reasons for that failure and others a year ago.

"I have one question as regards surface dressing that was put down at Glenfin Chapel, did we find out what happened last year before we do any more surface dressing on that... did we find out about the failure?

"On the tar, there were failures right round the whole county, around September time last year," Adrian said in response.

"It was in Donegal, here and Inishowen, and it seems to have been the tar to be honest with you."

"It seems to be the common theme because we did schemes from LIS lanes where you only have a couple of cars and the chips from the local suppliers, and then you had the (likes of) the Glenfin road where you have a busy road with a lot of traffic, high PSV chips that were sourced from the North. The only common factor seems to be the tar, (but) they're still working on it."

Councillor Frank McBrearty also queried why a prior motion calling for the reduction of use of tar and chip for most road repairs that had been passed had not yet been implemented fully in the Lifford-Stranorlar MD.

"Martin had a motion passed to do away with the tar and chip, basically. The executive has to stand up here and say 'right, is that going to be implemented?' In fairness to Councillor Scanlon, that motion was adopted at full Council."

In response, Adrian said that the Council was committed to using bitmac on the majority of regional and local roads.

"On our programmes, say for the regional roads and local roads, we try and give a commitment to the majority of the regional roads that we go for bitmac with an SMA finish going forward. I think for the local roads, 90 percent, maybe more, are all bitmac, there are only one or two wet mix roads on it."

"The finished surface outside the speed limits has to be tarred and chipped for skid resistance, I don't think Martin has any issue with that, that's a national thing and (no one) has any control under that."

"It's the wet mix material like we saw last year in the failing of (four or five) of our LIS (repairs), and a few CIS schemes that were done and some local roads. Given the costings and that we're going to be doing repair works on these roads this year, six months after them being done, financially it doesn't make sense what we're doing with wet mix material. I know you have to use tar and chip over the top for skid resistance, but you're still left with a solid base (by using bitmac)."

Discussions then focused on tarring and resurfacing works that are carried out on lanes in the Municipal District, with concerns being raised that tar and chip was also being used for these.

"There's about 150 lanes still on the (LIS) list, and about half of them are from 2017 so they're waiting now almost nine years," Adrian McCool said.

"There's a lot of (those) lanes where we could bitmac them, I agree with Martin, bitmac finishes (would) be perfect. But then if we do one lane with bitmac, the other lane (may) need a coat of wet mix as (if they) are soft lanes, if you don't put the wet mix under... you need a solid base, so then you put the wet mix and a bitmac finish and a tar and chip finish."

"There will be people waiting a lot longer... there's some lanes, you do need to get a coat of wet mix onto them as well. It's just money, there's ones waiting nine years there now, and if we add money they'll be waiting even longer."

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In response, Cllr Scanlon again pointed out the reported issues with the use of wet mix on the county's roads and lanes just last year.

"We're looking at LIS works that were done last year that need additional work done this year now, you're waiting nine years to get a lane done and six months later you're back to sit looking at potholes on it."

"These are people that are giving 10 percent of a contribution towards their lane, it's not like it's being given away for free."

"I had a look at the costings on the sheet that we were given... there's not much difference in it. It needs to be costed, that we need to come back with figures on it."

"In the other MDs, when a lane's bitmac-ed, say for a farm entrance, it hasn't to be tarred and chipped for the full distance. If it was on a slope or maybe coming onto a public road maybe the last 20 yards would be tarred and chipped for skid resistance."

"There needs to be a county-wide format for doing this, if it's good enough for the Glenties MD to be bitmaccing roads and not tar and chipping it then why not the same with us?

Councillors agreed to have a workshop meeting later this week with the roads department of the Council to further discuss the materials that will be used for the 2026 LIS works.