Care home road gritting appeal

A call is being made for the Bannview Road to be included in the Roads Service gritting schedule.
Bannview Road Banbridge ©Edward Byrne Photography INBL1505-208EBBannview Road Banbridge ©Edward Byrne Photography INBL1505-208EB
Bannview Road Banbridge ©Edward Byrne Photography INBL1505-208EB

This comes after discussions between Bannview House Care Home manager, John Rafferty and Upper Bann MP David Simpson,

At present the Bannview Road is only provided with grit piles despite this being a main avenue to the local Bannview House Care Home.

Speaking to The Leader, Mr Rafferty said: “Bannview House provides a specialist service to 80 residents and their extended families in the community. We also employ over 120 staff and they cover a 24 hour day, every day of the year.

“To provide safe and effective care we require staff to be able to attend their work safely and depart safely at any time.”

He continued: “Further to this, Bannview House has many professional visitors including GP’s and emergency services that require safe access and be able to respond to the medical needs of our residents.

“I am extremely conscious of the fact that many of our relatives are elderly and therefore it is important that the road is safe for vehicles or people on foot.”

Mr Simpson added his voice to the calls saying: “In recent days the adverse winter conditions have created a nightmare situation for the staff, residents and their families. Bannview House care Home is a critical asset to Banbridge and it is vital that the infrastructures are maintained to a safe standard.”

A spokesperson for DRD said: “The Bannview Road has been assessed and found that during a peak period the road carried an average of 19 vehicles an hour, and as such falls very significantly short of the criteria for inclusion on the gritting schedule.

“In terms of assessment for inclusions in the schedule, all routes are assessed against the same criteria. It would be grossly unfair to simply make exceptions or to divert resources from other areas that do meet the criteria.

“TransportNI provides grit piles free of charge on Bannview Road and The Department commends the community spirit of thousands of people across Northern Ireland who help their neighbours and themselves during the winter months by voluntarily spreading grit on residential and minor rural roads not on the gritting network.”