Grant award will help address road safety concern
Annahilt Parish have received an offer of a grant of £10,000 from Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council Community Facilities Fund towards the re–location of the vehicular entrance to their Parochial Hall.
This will help to resolve an urgent safety concern that the parish has been seeking to address with the Roads Service, their local council, councillors, and MP for the last 30 years.
The church and the church hall are situated on opposite sides of the very busy main road between Lisburn and Dromara with both existing entrances in the middle of a double or ‘S’ bend. As parking is very limited beside the church building, most people when attending Sunday services, weddings, funerals or other events at the church need to park beside the hall and cross the road. The hall itself is well used for both parish and community activities. There is also a constant flow of visitors into and out of the extensive graveyard. This unfortunately puts pedestrians at serious risk as they are crossing the road with minimal to no line of sight. Drivers and their passengers are also at risk when they enter or exit the car park beside the hall via the existing access as they need to cross oncoming traffic either as they enter or exit the car park without an adequate line of sight.
As the ‘S’ bend will not be modified, the main advice from the Roads Service was that the church should seek to move the vehicle entrance for one or both properties. Up until recently it has not been possible to take this forward as the surrounding land was either unsuitable for a new access point or not available.
Planning permission has been granted for the relocation of access to both the church and church hall. The parish is, however, prioritising work on the entranceway to the car park beside the church hall as it is larger and used more frequently.
Patricia Halliday, Hon Treasurer of Annahilt Parish said:
“The Select Vestry are grateful to Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council for the funding towards this project which will be a major step forward in improving safety for parishioners, the many local groups that use the premises and also the large volume of traffic passing daily. This grant is especially welcome as the costs will be considerably higher than was previously estimated.”