£27m spend on Larne borough roads in past year

The £27,338,000 investment includes the ongoing A8 dual carriageway contract.

As his officials prepared to explain the 2013-14 programme to Larne councillors on Monday night, Transport Minister Danny Kennedy said his Department invested over £135m in structural maintenance, “improving the many miles of road infrastructure across Northern Ireland in the last financial year”.

He added: “In particular in the Larne Council area, despite ever increasing demands on budgets, DRD invested over £27m in delivering a comprehensive range of road schemes and maintenance work.

“DRD is using its available resources highly effectively and continues to deliver quality public services in the Larne council area and across Northern Ireland.”

The minister said of the £130m scheme to dual 14.4 kilometres of the A8 between Belfast and Larne: “The scheme, which began in August 2012, has reached an important milestone with the completion by the contractor of one million working hours.

“The scheme is now around 50 per cent complete and is on programme to open to traffic in spring 2015. Total expenditure on the scheme during the 2013/14 financial year in the Larne Council area was approximately £22m.”

DRD has also spent £1.3m resurfacing local roads, including the A2 Garron Road, B97 Munie Road, B90 Low Road and UR47 Browndod Road. Over 28km of surface dressing was also completed at a cost of £180,000.

Principal engineer Andrew Hitchenor highlighted the scheme to upgrade the junction of B70 Brown’s Bay Road with B74 Ballytober Road and U75 Hollow Road in Islandmagee.

Road safety measures included the A2 Shore Road on the south east bound entrance to Glynn Village.