The 25-day closure of the Timahoe Road out of Portlaoise has had a huge impact on many people – but none more so than the business owners in the area.
Dysart Motors is located just beside the closed off Portlaoise Retail Centre roundabout – and owner Jimmy Fitzpatrick is furious about the lack of official notice given about the closure from Laois County Council.
Jimmy says that Dysart Motors are in for a major loss in revenue as traffic can only come from the town centre.
“At this stage everyone is saying, ‘Don’t go near the Timahoe road. Stay away from this road’. It’s like a cancer here now – people want to stay away from it,” said Jimmy.
“There’s no doubt about it, our income will drop. We’re here 25 years now, and whenever there’s roadworks on that road, it drops. We have a lot of loyal customers but convenience does come first.”
Dysart Motors receives a lot of business from people going to or coming out of the nearby NCT Centre. However, as the roadworks have blocked off the business from the aforementioned centre, Jimmy has already noticed a decline in business.
“We would get a lot of people coming in with small issues with their vehicles like a change in oil. Now that the roundabout is blocked off we’ve lost all that.
“We were only saying yesterday how quiet it was. The only people coming in were those who had booked jobs in,” Jimmy disclosed.
Jimmy says the main issue surrounds the lack of notice his and other businesses in the area were given surrounding the road closure. The Portlaoise man says their business only received a notice of the road closure two days before it happened.
“The frustration is the lack of notice. If we sat down three or four weeks ago, knowing how bad it would be, we would have put up our own signs and tell people – it would give us some chance.
‘Step on our toes – it doesn’t matter’
It’s just like they bulled in and bulled on, step on our toes – it doesn’t matter,” said a visibly outraged Jimmy.
“There was no notice in the papers, no warning of any description. I thought there would have to be at least three weeks warning and a notice in the papers. But there was absolutely nothing.”
The area around Dysart Motors is noticeably quiet at the moment, but Jimmy says the first day of road closures was utterly chaotic.
“It was chaos. Signs said ‘local access only’, but didn’t say ‘no through road’. All cars being turned back here. From that point of view it was a mess. They did put lads to direct traffic on the road but the problem there was that they got three or four lads from Kilkenny.
“They had no knowledge of the local area. They couldn’t even direct people to the NCT centre. There was people who missed their NCT test yesterday. It was unbelievable. There was frustration everywhere,” Jimmy remarked.
Jimmy says he spoke to Laois County Council this week to express his grievances.
One might say that Jimmy has a right to be concerned, given what has happened when previous roadworks occurred in the area three years ago.
“When they did previous roadworks they hit the fibre optic cable. We lost big that time, losing our internet and not being able to respond to breakdowns sent online by insurance companies. If we don’t accept a call out for a breakdown within a couple of minutes it goes to the next business,” says Jimmy.
While Jimmy says he understands that roadworks need to be carried out, he asks why there couldn’t be one lane open for traffic. “I know they’re under pressure to finish before the schools start, but why couldn’t they leave the one lane open instead of blocking the whole lot up?”
“There’s nothing going to change now but I guess I’m saying this so that it won’t happen in the future. Every now and then there are roadworks and it’s always the same story,” added Jimmy.
Works on the Timahoe road are due to last until Saturday, August 25.
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