Construction of the long-awaited, potentially life-saving park-and-ride facility near Roslea has hit a setback, with poor ground conditions causing unexpected delays.
The new facility at Dernawilt Junction will provide a designated area for cars and buses to safely pick up and drop off school children and commuters.
There had long been calls for the facility, with deep concern in the area that a child could be seriously hurt or even lose their life at the junction, where pupils have to cross a busy 60mph road to the nearby shop for pick up by their parents.
A DfI spokesperson said: “Following investigation it was noted that ground conditions at the location of the new park and ride site were poor and had to be surcharged.
“Commencement of construction work will be based on future settlement measurements being within acceptable limits.”
Cllr Sheamus Greene, who had helped lobby for the park-and-ride, had hoped it would be completed before children went back to school this September.
“We were hoping that it would be done for children going back to school, it seems that the contractor run into ground difficulty where they were having to leave it to compact so it wouldn’t start sinking in the mean time,” Sheamus explained.
“In the update they said it would be probably January before they would get back to it because they had been monitoring the ground conditions and it hadn’t compacted enough for them to go back to work on it.”
The Erne East councillor explained the impact this park and ride would have on the busy road.
“Hopefully it will make a huge difference because there has always been a serious problem at Dernawilt where buses are dropping children off and then having to cross a very busy dangerous road, especially in the winter time where traffic is parked at the area around the crossroads and people don’t have the best sight lines to see children,” he said.