Flashing speed warning sign near Lennox’s Bridge should be closer to Bundoran

A local Bundoran businessman and former councillor of the old town council, Diarmaid Doherty, has said that a flashing warning sign erected a couple of years ago, for drivers to slow down as they come towards Lennox’s Bridge near the south Donegal - north Leitrim border needs to be moved.

His comments come after another road traffic collision which took place on the same stretch of road on Monday last, near where he lives at the Rock Road junction.

He told the paper that the flashing sign and other warning signs which were erected around October 2021 on the R280 were welcome, but that their efficiency was greatly lessened by the fact that they were preceded by two bad bends before coming to see them.

“It is now catching people unawares. It should be 100 metres further back towards Bundoran, before the two bad bends.”

Mr Doherty said that the latest incident he had observed had happened, only last Monday.

Referencing the general location he said: “I don’t know how many cars that I have pulled out of the ditch and people covered in blood inside my house over the years,” he said.

The stretch of road beyond the warning sign as one approaches the Donegal Leitrim border on the R280 at Lennox's Bridge. Photo: Thomas Gallagher file pic

“The bends are every bit as dangerous, probably even more dangerous than the bridge itself, but the warning signage needs to go back before the first bend. It is (the current flashing sign) after the second bad bend,” he added.

“People come out of Bundoran on a big wide road, they then come up over the hill and just on the bend, the road narrows and it catches them. There is no doubt about it and at this time of the year it will not be long before the scrubs will probably grow up in front of the sign,” he also pointed out.

The requirement for a new bridge over the main arterial route from south Donegal and north Leitrim has been debated for decades, has progressed in more recent months, but is still a long way off, Mr Doherty explained.

“We’ve been waiting 40 years for this new bridge and I hope that it will be built sooner rather than later.”

The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage says that the current Lennox’s bridge is over 200 years old and describes it as such:

“Seven-arch road bridge over the Drowes River, built c.1820, with random coursed stone, cut stone to arch-rings and full-height up and downstream V-cutwaters.”