Western Rail Corridor / Rail Trail Discussion

Following the coverage in the national press today a more detailed press release below has been released by the Western Rail Trail Campaign:

Press release From: The Western Rail Trail campaign
April 27th 2019 for immediate release


• Planning Board rules against Kiltimagh Velorail project - overruling Mayo County Council
• Half a million Euro given to project by Minister Ring despite warnings about planning issues
• Council should abide by planning laws’ say Western Rail Trail campaign
• Greenway Campaign asks Mayo County Council to listen to thousands of petitioners and those that made submissions on county plan to include greenway in new velorail project plans
• Greenway campaigners appeal to local election candidates if elected to take the message back to the council chamber and ask why the council will not engage with Greenway concept.

An Bord Pleanala has ruled that the Kiltimagh Velorail project – a plan to use a section of the closed railway from Athenry to Collooney in Kiltimagh to carry self propelled carts on the closed railway as a tourist attraction – must apply for planning permission despite an assertion by Mayo County Council that the project constituted exempt development.

The Western Rail Trail campaign has been seeking the use of the closed rail alignment as a long-distance greenway from Athenry to Enniskillen until such time as a railway might be possible. The Western Rail Trail Greenway concept is designed to bring a huge tourism boost to towns all along the line and to provide connections to the Dublin Galway Greenway at Athenry and to the Great Western Greenway in Mayo. The campaign claim the potential for tourism in the West of Ireland and along the Atlantic Economic Corridor is huge.

Campaigners were concerned that the velorail project as proposed effectively blocked the long distance greenway to benefit tourism on the Atlantic Economic Corridor from going through Kiltimagh, creating a 6km gap on the Western Rail Trail from Athenry County Galway to Collooney County Sligo resulting in Kiltimagh losing out on the tourist boom the Western Rail Trail will bring. The project sponsors Kiltimagh IRD and Mayo County Council refused to consider the very reasonable idea of a greenway to run alongside the closed railway as part of the overall project design for the 6km that the velorail will run on, so as not to have a gap in the proposed Western Rail Trail from Athenry to Collooney, and so Kiltimagh will not lose out.

Despite hundreds of submissions to the Mayo County Plan received in 2013 asking for a greenway on the closed railway route and a local petition in Kiltimagh attracting over 1,000 signatures, plus a national petition signed by almost 24,000 people in support of the Western Rail Trail, the concerns of the greenway supporters have been consistently ignored by Mayo County Council.

The refusal of Mayo County Council and Kiltimagh IRD to engage in a planning process meant that local concerns were never heard; Leading to the project being appealed to An Bord Pleanala (ABP) in November 2017.

Last week, ABP ruled that the County Council and Kiltimagh IRD were incorrect in their view that the project constituted exempt development. Despite having attracted almost half a million euro in funding, the velorail project is now effectively back at the starting blocks and must now be the subject of a planning process, which will allow local concerns to be addressed.

A spokesman for the Western Rail Trail welcomed the ruling, but was critical of Minister Ring and the County Council for their handling of the project to date.

Brendan Quinn said: “The An Bord Pleanala decision was based entirely on the planning statutes, which were cited in the Boards Direction. One would assume senior planners in Mayo county council would be familiar with the planning laws and it makes us wonder why the council was so obstructive to our views. It has been a long arduous process involved in challenging the council, Mayo County Council have tried to stop this challenge every step of the way making it as difficult as possible for us.”

“The Council should lead by example and abide by planning laws” said Quinn, “and not decide that they can ignore them like some cowboy builder and then try to obstruct people from questioning their decision making”

Quinn went on to question the funding of the project by Minister Ring, in spite of the Minister being advised to adopt a cautious approach by his officials. “In December 2017 I advised Minister Ring by email that the matter was being adjudicated on by An Bord Pleanala” he said, “but it appears that the Minister was more inclined to listen to Mayo County Council. We now know Mayo county council was not a good source of advice when it came to planning law”

Quinn went on to say that greenway campaigners are not opposed to the velorail project, despite reservations on its viability, and they certainly don’t oppose a railway if it should ever make sense. However he said “the greenway is the best option actually on the table in terms of funding, and the benefits of such infrastructure are well proven.”

The Greenway Campaign now looks forward to hearing the planning proposals from Mayo County Council now that the Velo Rail project is legally bound to make a planning submission. Quinn added

“We don’t want more battles with Mayo County Council; we are just asking the council executive, planning officers and above all the council members to finally embrace what thousands of people have said by signing petitions and making submissions on this subject to include a walking and cycling track alongside the route of the velorail. There have been hundreds of submissions to the council, thousands signing petitions and the County Council planning executive haven’t even allowed the council members to debate this issue, it is deplorable”

“We also hope that Mayo County Council executive and all candidates in the forthcoming election will finally recognise that north of Claremorris at least, a greenway is actually the best option open to the county to create a real amenity on the closed railway route, excepting that at Kiltimagh it will run alongside the velorail for a few kilometres”

Ends

ENDS: body text 899 words Contacts: contact via the sligomayogreenway page on facebook please

References:

1. The An bord pleanala planning reference ABP-300285-17. All documentation relating to the appeal has been released on www.pleanala.ie

2. Petitions in favour of the greenway can be found on www.change.org

3. 23,475 people have signed https://www.change.org/p/western-rail-trail-campaign-create-a-walking-and-cycling-greenway-on-the-closed-railway-from-sligo-to-athenry

4. 1006 people signed a specific petition asking Mayo county council to put a greenway alongside the closed railway where it is being used as a velorail. The petition was signed by over half the adult population of Kiltimagh

5. https://www.change.org/p/peter-hynes-mayo-county-manager-put-a-walking-and-cycling-path-for-everyone-to-enjoy-parallel-with-kiltimagh-velorail

eastwest wrote: »

I see from today's Sunday independent that mayo county council's wot-inspired greenway-blocking project in Kiltimagh has fallen foul of the planners.

The article is here.

Sunday Independent wrote:

The setback for the project comes just weeks after the developers announced an additional Leader grant of €198,000 to cover the costs of the carriages, a website and signage. This follows two grants of €180,000 and €118,000 approved by Mr Ring.

There's where half a million of our money is going, folks.

Sunday Independent wrote:

The project ran overbudget by €147,000 because of unforeseen problems, such as subsidence to the railway line.

The minister approved the €118,000 grant to contribute towards the over-run, reportedly despite warnings from his civil servants that doing so could cause "problematic precedents".

If you follow the documents from An Bord Pleanala through, you will come across this wonderful gem:

An Bord Pleanalas Inspectors Report Addendum wrote:

I would also note reference, in the submitted copy of the application for departmental funding by the Kiltimagh IRD, to proposed laybys, pull-in areas and a small food vending area for refreshments along the route, which are not referred to in development description.

It is not clear what is meant by pull-in areas, but it would seem unlikely that this would be provided through anything as substantial as an extension of track (such as sidings), which would be an expensive, intrusive and significant undertaking and would be excessive for such light vehicles.

It would seem impractical for the proposed facility to operate without pull-in areas to enable opposing velo carts to pass or velo carts to overtake one another without pull-in areas at frequent intervals, but not impossible depending on how the facility is operated (such as travelling in organised convoys).

This is comical stuff, but unfortunately the pathetic joke is on us, and the half a million that's already been spent/promised on this project.

FrontPage on the Galway Freesheet Newspaper: Galway Advertiser

https://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/107418/economists-comments-show-only-way-is-the-greenway-says-councillor

(ignore the photo - does not have any context to the article)

Sam Russell wrote: »

Unfortunately, the economist is Colm McCarthy - well known for being anti-rail.

True - his stance on the DART was pure daft - WOT......
Anyhow point been is that Greenway is making front page in the local papers with local elections in 3 weeks time.

serfboard wrote: »

The article is here.

There's where half a million of our money is going, folks.

If you follow the documents from An Bord Pleanala through, you will come across this wonderful gem:
Quote:
[HTML]Originally Posted by An Bord Pleanala's Inspector's Report Addendum
I would also note reference, in the submitted copy of the application for departmental funding by the Kiltimagh IRD, to proposed laybys, pull-in areas and a small food vending area for refreshments along the route, which are not referred to in development description.

It is not clear what is meant by pull-in areas, but it would seem unlikely that this would be provided through anything as substantial as an extension of track (such as sidings), which would be an expensive, intrusive and significant undertaking and would be excessive for such light vehicles.

It would seem impractical for the proposed facility to operate without pull-in areas to enable opposing velo carts to pass or velo carts to overtake one another without pull-in areas at frequent intervals, but not impossible depending on how the facility is operated (such as travelling in organised convoys).[/HTML]
This is comical stuff, but unfortunately the pathetic joke is on us, and the half a million that's already been spent/promised on this project.

Surprisingly I have not yet gone through the inspectors report with a fine toothcomb, but the quote you have pulled out does not augur well for MCC, as ABP is already taking notes and a view on the detail of the case, as it points to operational problems that might occur, one of those might well be health and safety, I have just picked up this quote from second addendum report

The SAA report does nothing to show right of public to consultation or address health and safety or traffic or parking issues for an operation attracting up to 80,000 people per annum.

One of the key health and safety issues raised by the submission and observations is the need for an access track to run alongside the velorail, this will be expensive but possible based on the landback the closed line sits on, and will need to be a key part of the new planning process from MCC, if they don't include this as a prerequisite, which could of course double up as a greenway, then the plan is likely to go back to ABP, the fact ABP has raised the health and safety straw in the wind does not augur well for the velorail idea as it sits at the moment in the minds of MCC or Kiltimagh IRD.

Utter Consternation wrote: »

A whopping 30% increase to nine trains each way a week.

Hold the fcuking phone!!!:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Just posted it to balance the posting of every trivial piece of pro-greenway guff linked to by other posters.

what_traffic wrote: »

Whats IWT (International Warehousing and Transport (IWT))position on the Western Rail Corridor / Rail Trail?

My guess is they don't have a position, their trains go to Dublin and Waterford on the current infrastructure which serves them well for the 1.28 trains a day; in the main they are hauling concentrate from well known international soft drinks company based near Ballina, that concentrate gets shipped to franchise bottlers in the UK and Europe shipped out of either Waterford or Dublin, the soft drinks company has no interest in shipping from Foynes it would extend the shipping time to Europe and the UK.

I haven't seen the press release from IWT it seems this information came from the West on Track FB page. Exciting though isn't it, allegedly 1.28 trains a day, we had better build a new railway line to cope with the capacity!!!! give me strength please.

MayoForSam wrote: »

The IWT article also mentions "additional new business has been added from the medical, retail and brewing industries in the area" - I am involved with the primary medical device manufacturer in the Ballina area and we have absolutely no plans to utilize rail transport as it would not meet our supply chain needs. As for the brewing industry, there are a few local micro-breweries and distilleries set up recently but I very much doubt if they would fill a train container with their limited production volumes. Not sure if many 'retailers' would have any use for rail transport either.

One would surmise that the only reason the line between Manulla and Ballina is kept open is because of the freight. If it went the line would probably be closed down overnight.

serfboard wrote: »

A specialist - a bit like Fr. McGreil is a specialist?

or 50% of the Experts on the so called "Expert Working group" that gave us the McCann report in 2005 that led to this debacle...... the EWG was made up of 50% members of West on Track!!!

Thank goodness for EY DKN.....

serfboard wrote: »

A specialist - a bit like Fr. McGreil is a specialist?

At least Fr.McGreil has a genuine interest in something unlike the detached economist Colm McCarthy who only interest, apart from hearing his own voice/or and reading his own drivel, is getting paid for same.