Residents meet to act on A5 plans

Speaking to the Sentinel ahead of a meeting of the newly-formed Riverview Residents Group last night Laura Collins says people living in the village fear the value of their property will plummet as a result of the road project.

She said a neighbour recently had a three-bedroom house detached house in the Ballyore Estate overlooking the River Foyle valued at just 95,000, which represents a massive drop of 110,000 on what Mrs Collins paid for hers four years ago.

Residents of the area fear this devaluation will continue when work on the road takes place. They are also concerned the huge A5 Western Transport Corridor (WTC) will rob them of their view of the river and raise considerable safety issues trapping residents between the Victoria Road and the new dual carriageway.

Thus when diggers arrived recently to carry out what Mrs Collins believes to have been preliminary ground work and letters from solicitors started dropping through letter boxes in the village offering services in any compensation actions residents decided to take action.

Last night a group met at a house in the estate to test the water and see what unified action could be taken to address their concerns.

Said Mrs Collins: "Our aim at the meeting it to gather agreement from each of the residents in regard to acting together as Riverview Residents Group, in our fight for our rights and compensation as a result of the effects of this new road."

She said that whilst residents of Ballyore Grove, Edgewater and Victoria Road were anxious about the effect the road will have on the value of their homes they will also be denied access to the river side they now enjoy.

"We have a wooden gate from our garden that goes out onto the farmers' fields and people can go out and take the dogs out but if the road goes ahead we won't be able to do that. There's a safety issue there as well.

"People are concerned. I've only been here four years but I've neighbours who have been living in the area for 30 years and they have been used to it for that time," she said.

Mrs Collins said she would prefer the Deparment to have developed the road along the old Cullion railway line and that this would have had less of an impact on landowners and could have been carried out at less expense than the current proposal.

Speaking to the Sentinel before the paper went to press and ahead of last night's meeting she said she was hopeful of a positive outcome.

Meanwhile Roads Minister Conor Murphy addressing a question on consultation between Roads Service and land owners located on the proposed A5 route said a third round of meetings to discuss land take would take place this summer.

He stated: "My Department's Roads Service has had ongoing consultation with landowners and the public since the start of the A5 Dualling project.

"Consultation events were held in April 2008 to present the Study Area, in February 2009 to present the Route Options and in July 2009 to present the Preferred Route.

"Since the July 2009 consultation event, members of the project team have met directly with the affected landowners to discuss in detail the impacts of the project.

"A second round of meetings to discuss issues such as access and accommodation works is currently ongoing. A third round of meetings to confirm updated landtake and to further discuss proposed accommodation works, will take place in the summer of this year."