Concerns for health and safety on paths in park

THE spreading of muck across a footpath in Bancroft Park represents a “health and safety issue” and should be dealt with, according to a local resident.

Leo Oman told The Echo that he believes the muck is being spread when vehicles enter the park at Bancroft Crescent to empty bins or carry out grass cutting.

“What happens is, the vehicles are bigger than the path and they have to go over the side of the path and the muck moves across,” he said while walking through the park on Monday morning.

“It’s fine in the summer, but now I’m walking through it, there’s grass in the muck and it’s frozen over and it’s like walking on an ice rink.

“I worked on building sites for years, and this sort of thing would be a health and safety issue, someone could fall.”

Mr Oman suggested that ways of dealing with the issue could include using narrower vehicles or requiring workers to clean up the trails of muck left on the footpath after they use it.

“Senior citizens, children and mothers pushing prams have to walk through this muck to access facilities,” added Mr Oman.

“In wet or icy weather this becomes either a swamp, or iced over to become dangerous.”

The Echo contacted South Dublin County Council for comment, and a spokesperson said the footpaths were scheduled to be cleaned this week.

“As part of the council’s ongoing playground maintenance, mulch is routinely added to ensure a safe play area for children,” said the spokesperson.

“Unfortunately, due to the necessity of using heavy machinery during installation, coupled with persistent wet weather, some mud has been deposited onto the footpath.

“Public Realm staff are scheduled to remove mud from the footpath [on Tuesday].

“The footpaths in Bancroft Park are of sufficient size with the majority of footpaths being 2.2m wide.

“Over the past two years the Public Realm Section has installed two new sections of footpaths in the park to aid pedestrian connectivity and create a walking/running exercise loop.”