Bus shelter upkeep costing £20k a year

The price tag for upkeep of the roadside structures was contained in an update on shelter provision to a Council committee on Thursday night by one of their officers.

The meeting heard that bus shelters are erected by Council at strategic locations as agreed with Translink, the PSNI and Roads Service while other shelters are erected locally by a private enterprise where advertisement is permitted, at no cost to Council.

Requests which come to Council through a member, MLA or MP have to be agreed by councillors prior to proceeding to the planning stage, the officer said.

Subject to planning approval, the proposal then moves on to construction by the Building Maintenance Department of Council which keeps a supply of shelters in stock.

The cost of supply and erection of a shelter is in excess of £6,000, councillors were told.

A number of councillors took the opportunity to get updates on how their requests for shelters were progressing including Monica Digney, Paul Maguire, James Henry and Beth Clyde.

There was good news for Cllrs John Carson and Beth Adger who were delighted to learn that a proposed shelter at Tullygarley would be going to the planning stage after it had emerged that the site in question was in the ownership of Roads Service.