Lord Questions Plan Over 'A5 Shambles'

Lord Morrow of Clogher Valley has questioned "if the DRD Minister has a plan for dealing with the A5 shambles as it appears that he is flapping around directionless."

Lord Morrow has called on the DRD Minister to make a statement to the Assembly and also come to Co Tyrone to meet with landowners.

Commenting Lord Morrow said: Since the quashing of the A5 project Minister Kennedy seems to be in a spin without any plan to handle the fallout of the court ruling. The semi-detached approach that the Minister is adopting beggars belief. The very least he owes the Assembly is a statement to the House. So far the Minister has failed in this respect.

"In the early stages of the A5 project DRD failed to carry out its preliminary works correctly hence the Court’s decision. During vesting the Department failed to work with landowners correctly thus leading to many landowners outraged at the arrogant way their land was vested. Now that the project has been quashed a few landowners are sitting with £800k for their land whilst others, who had no access to their property for seven months, have been given nothing.


"Some questions Danny Kennedy needs to answer are:

"With £800k spent on land purchasing, does the public own any land and if not how will this be handled? It must be handled correctly as understandably some of the recipients may have already reinvested the money.

"Will this £800k be written off as lost money from the public purse?

"What compensation will be paid to the landowners who had no access to their land for seven months after vesting on 11 September 2012?

"With 30km of new fencing already removed was this recycled or was it scrapped and placed in landfill?

"Why is he on the run from answering questions about the A5? Does he not know the answers? First of all the DRD Committee was gagged from asking questions about the A5 and now a local cross-party group of Councillors in Dungannon are struggling to get a meeting with the Minister having previously cancelled a scheduled meeting.

"When is the Minister going to do a public meeting with the landowners and give answers to their frustrations? They have been disrespected for long enough. The long-term plans for the road will have significant implications for business-plans within our agri-food sector. The Minister should meet directly with landowners to brief them on his plans - if they exist.

"The Minister needs to get his act together on this project. His own local party members are even outraged at the dismissive and distant attitude of the Minister to this shambles."

(CD/IT)