Category: Greenways

The Irish Examiner (soft paywall) reports that Cork City Councillors have approved Part 8 planning (process for a local authority to grant itself planning permission) for a greenway on part of the former CB&SCR trackbed between the Kinsale Road roundabout and Chetwynd Reservoir (east of the former, the trackbed is now a road).

The map below (extract from Openstreetmap and licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License) shows the location, to which I have added a rough line of the route in red.

Cry me a river. Agriland.ie reports on the “concerns” of a farmer in Cork about the possible building of a greenway along the former railway route from Mallow to Dungarvan.

Complaints about farms being split have no merit – when there was a railway there (up until 1967), any farm was split and had to move livestock etc across an operational railway. Doing the same across a greenway is far less hassle as people/bikes can stop in a shorter timeframe than a moving train. The specific farm in question only acquired the route in 1982 – what did they do pre-1982?

The usual objections that arise around any other infrastructure project are also trotted out – pollution and in this case, the effects on freshwater pearl mussels. So, build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything (BANANA).

I’m sure if the farmer wanted to build a one off house in the countryside, they would not have any concerns about pollution or anything else for that matter.

A public consultation into plans by Cork City Council to upgrade the existing greenway from Cork to Rochestown and build an extension to the Cork City boundary commences on 26th January 2023 and runs to March 10 2023.

A consultation process in respect of a greenway along the former SL&NCR from Collooney to Enniskillen is underway and a website in respect of the project has been established.

Details of the public consultation process is here.

RTE have an article on their site about the Limerick Greenway (formerly the Great Southern Trail).

TraleeToday.ie reports that the Tralee – Fenit Greenway (along the former railway between the two towns) opened last weekend.

I’m sure Irish Rail are delighted to have offloaded another liability and the awkward questions around how a railway that was not abandoned could have a supermarket carpark built on it.

The Anglo Celt reports that a public consultation on the next phase of the Ulster Canal Greenway – from Clones to Smithborough – is underway this week.

RTE is reporting that work is to commence on an extension to the Waterford Greenway – at the Waterford City end of same.

This will extend the Greenway from Bilberry to Waterford City. Unfortunately, this will not re-use the former Suir railway bridge, which remains derelict and out of use.

Finally, something other than railways, but it is still about greenways, which appear to be the new thing for local authorities all over the Republic of Ireland.

The Irish Times reports that Dublin City Council are to seek Part 8 planning permission to widen the towpaths of sections of the Royal Canal in their administrative area.

Public consultation on this is supposed to be available but I cannot see any reference to it on Dublin City Council’s website, nor on Waterways Ireland’s.

Per the Irish Times, the sections to be widened (which means narrowing of the canal) are:

600m west of Lock 6, 345m west of Broomebridge and 85m west of Lock 8.

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