Service lanes in some council housing estates are in such poor condition that elderly residents cannot reach their coal, a Donegal County Councillor has said.
Cllr Noel Jordan is urging the council to carry out an audit on the maintenance of all service lanes in the county which are under the council’s remit.
The matter is a cause for huge concern in every Municipal District in the county, Cllr Jordan told this month’s council meeting.
The Donegal area councillor said: “There is a number of service lanes that are unusable any more. We’re in the middle of winter, we have a lot of elderly tenants that can’t even get access to get their coal at the the backs of their houses.”
Donegal County Council is currently finalising a policy for the maintenance of roads and footpaths, public lighting, green areas and back lanes in council housing estates. The draft policy proposed that estates are surveyed and annual programmes and budgets are developed for maintenance and improvement works.
Cllr Jordan, seeking to speed up the adoption of the draft policy, has called for an audit to be urgently carried out on all estates in all Municipal Districts before the proposal is brought before the council’s next plenary meeting.