6 Public Consultation

6.1 Preferred Route Corridor - Public Consultation No. 3

The third public consultation was held in the autumn of 2001 with exhibitions toward the end of October. The purpose was to display the preferred route corridor and gather further information before concluding the route selection process. The exhibitions were preceded by five days of meetings with affected landowners who had all been invited to meet the members of the design and liaison teams. There were 10 venues for the exhibitions, Carlow, Bagenalstown, Athy, Castledermot, Kilkenny, Knocktopher, Mullinavat, Thomastown and Kilmacow and a total of 650 people attended over a 9 day period.

Many requests to adjust the route corridor were received from both the landowner meetings and the exhibitions, particularly with the aim of reducing farming and property impacts, and effects on commercial operations.