Call for urgent safety measures on Beamore Road after fatal incident
Further calls have been made for urgent safety measures to be put in place on the Beamore Road following the tragic death of a woman in her 70s as a result of a road traffic collision earlier this month.
Grandmother Elizabeth Guinness died at the scene after her car was in collision with a lorry at Platin Terrace on 3rd July.
Originally from Glenageary in Dublin she had been living in Matson Lodge, on the Ballymakenny road for many years and was a popular figure in the area.
Fianna Fail Cllr Stephen McKee had submitted a motion on the issue prior to the fatality for July's Laytown/Bettystown Municipal District meeting.
It has been raised a number of times over the years by McKee and several other local reps.
The motion was supported by all.
In the motion he asked for Meath County Council to take immediate measures to improve road safety at Beamore and Beamore Road and that they prioritise Beamore Cross junction from Government funding so that an effective and much needed road safety scheme can be carried out there.
"Anyone in the area knows that between the Mounthanover Junction and Beamore Cross is an accident waiting to happen," said McKee.
"It requires a proper safety scheme and I would ask everyone to support this because there are lives at stake here."
Independent Cllr Carol Lennon said "sometimes we have knee jerk reactions when something like this happens.
The reality is that this has been brought up over and over again so we flagged that this was a risk and unfortunately there has been a fatality that we never want to occur again.
While everything can't be prevented, when it is reasonably forseeable it is our duty to implement safety measures."
Meanwhile Fianna Fail Cllr Wayne Harding vented his frustration at the lack of action taken to address safety issues in this area despite concerns being raised for years.
"There is huge infrastructure and safety measures after being put on the N51 Slane to Navan Road in our municipal district as a result of a national directive and we are coming in here talking about two deadly dangerous roads for years."
"We have been saying that something is going to happen at those crossroads for years and now something has," he added.
Cllr Sharon Tolan (FG) said a number of roads in the district are "unsafe" and councillors need to have more say in how local roads are managed.
"It seems like strategic decisions are taken way above our heads made by other departments beyond our control yet we are the people on the ground, talking to people, driving those roads day and night.
"There are actually roads I will not drive on, I will not drive the Pilltown road because if you do you will inevitably come across at least one, if not a number of vehicles on the wrong side of the road.
For 11 years I have asked for road markings on that road.
There are roads in this district that are absolutely unsafe and people are having to drive them day in, day out to get to work, school, hospital appointments.
We have funding for the Julianstown Bypass, funding for a road safety scheme through Julianstown, none of it has progressed."
In their response Meath County Council said "in August 2024 the Crossroads junction at Beamore was identified as a location of interest as part of the Department of Transport support office's review of collision data from 2017 to 2023.
Meath County Council subsequently received a specific improvement grant for 2025 to progress a scheme at this location, and have carried out a procurement process to appoint consultants and are currently finalising the award of the contract."
MCC have also received separate safety improvement works, grant funding for 2025 to carry out interim low cost safety measures at this location until the larger SIG scheme, which is expected to require land acquisition, can be completed.
These low cost measures are currently at the design stage, the extent of the works have not yet been decided. We will update members further, when the plans have been finalised."