Bill Manwaring, NI Conservatives’ spokesman for regional development, has accused the UUP of ‘losing its way completely’, after the party’s roads minister, Danny Kennedy, gave the go-ahead for the A5 upgrade between Londonderry and Ballygawley.
“It saddens me to see it, but this decision is another sign that the party has lost its way”, Bill explained. “From opposing this project, which is expensive, damaging to local people and politically motivated, the UUP has now become its champion. From debating seriously whether to form an opposition, in order to hold the Executive to account, the UUP seems to be propping up the DUP / Sinn Féin carve-up and administering its murky deals”.
“The party’s last manifesto demanded an urgent review of the A5 scheme, which it described as a ‘road between Donegal and Dublin’. Now the minister is devoting the largest slice of his road building budget to this project, whose benefits to the economy are very doubtful and which will decimate some of Northern Ireland’s richest farmland.”
“The UUP is fully aware that the A5 proposals have been pushed by Sinn Féin as part of a nakedly political agenda. It knows that it has been accepted as part of a grubby carve-up with the DUP and yet its minister is now administering that deal. It’s a lamentable decision and I feel genuinely sorry for the many UUP members and voters, who will once again feel so desperately let down by their leaders.”