The total funding is part of the first ever national Community Involvement Scheme, which will see residents in rural communities team up with their local county council to improve minor roads in rural areas. Leitrim County Council will receive €348,832 in funding, while Roscommon County Council gets an allocation of €151,879.
Mr Feighan said: This funding will particularly target roads which may not be major arteries but are still vital transport links for rural and farming communities. This scheme will allow communities to have a direct input along with their local authority into local road maintenance.
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"Both councils have asked communities to come up with a portion of the cost of road maintenance either through funding, labour provision, machinery supply or other forms of benefit.
"In the normal course of a county council’s road works programme, repairs to minor county roads would only be considered towards the end of the programme after more heavily trafficked routes had been dealt with. Accordingly, the purpose of this pilot community involvement scheme is to permit local participation in the repair of roads.
"In this way, if there are particular problems affecting a given stretch of road and if the local community are willing to assist the local authority (in money or kind) with the necessary works, then such roads can be improved sooner than would otherwise be the case. As such, the scheme recognises local community involvement in this area, without in any way taking from the statutory responsibilities of county councils."
(CD/MH)
