SAVE THE BARROW LINE PUBLIC MEETING - JAN 2018
Save the Barrow Line with Carlow Ambassador and Chairwoman Olivia O'Leary will hold a public meeting in the Abbey Hall, Graiguenamanagh on Sunday 21st Jan 2018 at 5pm.
We will have sample letters of objection on hand on the day and will provide a facility for delivering these to the council on your behalf for anybody who wants. There is no fee if you have made a previous submission but you will need to have either the receipt from the original submission or the receipt number (which you can get by either phoning or emailing the council) so please bring either of these along to the meeting.
It’d be brilliant to see everybody there and we really appreciate the effort everybody has made. To fight this we really need everybody to continue to make their voice heard. The council are due to make their decision on 21st Feb 2018 and deadline for public submissions is 6th Feb (1st Feb for Kildare and 5th Feb for Laois).
SAVE THE BARROW LINE PUBLIC MEETING - Feb 2017
Save the Barrow Line with Chairperson and Carlow Ambassador Olivia O'Leary will hold a public meeting in the Abbey Hall, Graiguenamanagh, at 5pm on Sunday 19th February. We will have template letters of objection available at the meeting. Hope to see you all there!
SAVE THE BARROW LINE PUBLIC MEETING - Aug 2014
S
First I want to apologise
profusely to all the people who came to our meeting in Graignamanagh
on Friday night and couldn’t find seats. We were thrilled and
overwhelmed by the numbers of you who came.
You have taught us an important lesson.
Never underestimate the real passion local people feel for
the river Barrow and its wonderful green track.
If it weren’t so beautiful, we
wouldn’t be so exercised about it.
But it is. The
grassy towpath of the Barrow waterway is to me the most beautiful
place on God’s earth. About 70
kilometres of it, a grassy way drawing you deep into the heart of
the river country, not the sound of a car, not the sound of your own
steps to be heard, and your feet telling you that you are walking on
soft grassy earth. Not
on gravel or hardcore
but on nature’s own green surface.
It is the undiscovered jewel of Western Europe, says Mary
White. The most
beautiful riverside walk in these islands, says Dick Warner.
And it’s not just the river, it’s
the grass which makes this paradise.
The grass is a carpet, it dictates the quiet.
It dictates the pace, a pace which accommodates both walkers
and joggers and cyclists.
No one can go so fast that they intimidate or endanger any of
the other users. People
walk at a pace which allows them to stop and talk to one another, to
look at the kingfisher, to stop and watch the fish jumping.
Cyclists share the space, as they
should. They don’t
dominate it. It is
paradise. Why destroy
paradise? Joni
Mitchell’s song goes: ‘To see Paradise, put up a parking lot’.
Well, our planners seem to think that to see Paradise you
have to have a road.
Because it is a type of road surface that is being put forward.
WHOSE IDEA?
The idea first arose in from a study, the Barrow Corridor
Recreational, Tourism and Commercial Product Identification Study.
The study was commissioned by Waterways Ireland together with Fáilte
Ireland and the Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois and Wexford County
Councils that border the Grand Canal Barrow Line, the Barrow
Navigation and the estuary of the River Barrow.
Then a feasibility study into a cycle track was done on
behalf of Carlow Development Partnership and the Leader groups
attached to Carlow, Kildare and Kilkenny Co Councils.
They looked into developing a Class 2 cycle trail in
accordance with the National Trails Office which are “suitable for
urban or urban fringe or core recreational areas”.
So this is the first problem. It is a urban/suburban idea, not ideal for a rural wilderness. Second: it will take up pretty well the whole line. I quote from the feasibility study” the width of trail is limited to a maximum width of 2.5m from Carlow southwards and a maximum of 3.0m on the Monasterevin to Carlow section. Waterways have revealed since that the maximum width will be 2 metres, or 6.6 feet wide. Anyone who walks the line knows that will take up most of the present walking and cycling space between the two verges with their wildflowers and grasses.
Thirdly, and most importantly, it will be a hard surface.
They propose an unbound surface of hard core or stones and
then put down over that crushed limestone.
In some places that will be a bound surface,
impermeable, like a road and will involve a layer of asphalt on the
top.
When the secretary of our group, Cliona O’Connell,
wrote to Waterways about the proposal, the engineer, Rosanna Nolan,
told her “the surface proposed would be similar to the surface
upstream of Graignamanagh Bridge”.
If you look elsewhere on the website, you can see what the
surface upstream of Graig Bridge is like.
It is a gritty, hard surface. Is that what we want the
whole way down the towpath? Rather than the lush, grassy path we
know?
This grassy towpath is a shared amenity for walkers and
joggers and cyclists and anglers.
The grassy turf is wonderful for walkers and joggers because
it is so easy on the knees and legs. Ask any doctor.
SHARING
And it dictates a pace which makes it possible for it
to be shared by pedestrians and cyclists alike.
A hard surface encourages speed and makes it more difficult
for walkers and cyclists to co-exist peacefully.
I walk on hard surface shared trails in Dublin and there are
constant tensions between walkers and cyclists.
And there’s danger. Speed beside the river is not the wisest
thing.
There are environmental reports being prepared on the
effects of this proposed cycle track which are not yet completed.
But remember the whole area of the Barrow river is a Special Area of
Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive.
Carlow County Council in its draft plan for 2015-2021
promises specifically to:
“Protect and enhance the natural heritage and landscape character of
river and stream corridors and valleys, maintain them free from
inappropriate development and make provision for public access where
feasible and appropriate”
DISRUPTION
Think of the disruption to flora and fauna there will be. Think what
it will do to the wild life to have machines ripping up the towpath
surface from Monasterevin to St Mullins- and according to the
feasibility report, they’re planning to do all this work this over
about 13 months.
Think of the massive amounts of machinery, of diggers and dumpers,
of noise, of great heaps of stones dumped on or beside the line!
And then think of shy creatures like the otters at
Ballytiglea and further down; of the swifts at Ballytiglea and
Milltown; of kingfishers at Lower Tinnehinch.
Dick Warner, the environmentalist who helped to put the Barrow on
the map with his stunning TV series, ‘Waterways’, has described the
rivers and its towpath bed as being of inestimable value and of huge
beauty: “It’s a treasure incredibly rich in wild-life”.
He says he is completely
opposed to the proposed hard track and says the construction and the
subsequent faster traffic on the line would be a real deterrent to
wildlife especially otters who will leave a place and never come
back if disturbed. This
plan is a real threat to this wild place.
JOBS
We are told that this will bring increased numbers of visitors to
the river towns and that that in turn will bring jobs.
Well, remember how we were always told during the Celtic
Tiger era that all sorts of dreadful developments had to be allowed
in the name of progress and jobs? Our planners allowed some of the
most beautiful places in this country to be utterly destroyed with
thoughtless building and development, some of which we now have to
pay to have pulled down again, not to mention the massive debts we
are stuck with because of banks who lent for this thoughtless
development.
Guard your treasure well, nurture it and it will bring jobs.
Sell this area as a peaceful haven for walkers and cyclists
and nature trails and anglers and you will get your numbers.
Failte Ireland and Carlow Tourism have never ever understood
the jewel they have here in this green sward, one of the few long
distance grassy walking ways in Europe.
I have yet to see the sort of poster I would use, of a pair of
walkers setting out along a peaceful green riverside path. Peace,
quiet, the sort that can mend our nerves and salve our souls.
I know that every time I have written an article for the
Irish Times or done an RTE programme about this area (and I have
done a few), I meet people for the next year on the Barrow Line
saying ‘we read your piece and decided to come down and we’re
delighted.’ They love it.
They wonder why they had never heard of it. And they have
never heard of it because it has never, never been promoted by the
authorities as it should.
But then some bright spark saw the Greenway in Westport and said:
‘Hey, why not do a cycle track down the Barrow?’
But this isn’t Westport and this isn’t a railway. The
Westport Greenway is a new amenity based on a disused railway. It
didn’t exist before. The Barrow towpath is an existing established
amenity beloved of so many of us. It
is a jewel. It should be
passed on from generation to generation.
It should be protected and sold as the sensitive grassy
peaceful haven that it is.
WATERWAYS
Waterways Ireland have done great work on the Barrow.
They have maintained the track and the locks and they have
tried to keep the canals weed-free.
But why not use the money proposed for this project to make
what’s here better, not to destroy it. Yes, there are areas of the
line where remedial work needs to be done because the line has
collapsed. Yes, there
are places where there are potholes; places where overhead foliage
needs to be curtailed so that cyclists don’t bang their heads. Map
installations are needed for walkers and cyclists. And the river
activities have to be encouraged: canoeing and canoeing camps; the
restocking of the river- remember the hordes of British and Dutch
fishermen who used to come here when there were fish in the river?
My Aunty Kitty O’Leary ran a B and B in Graig which was full of
German and Dutch and British fishermen in the summertime.
RAILWAY
If the authorities want to provide a hard surface cycle track, why
not use our own old railway.
The Palace East Line is still there though in a piece of
cultural vandalism Carlow VEC allowed Borris Community School to
make a break in the embankment in Borris. But have now built on
it-but there are ways around that.
The
feasibility study makes very sketchy suggestions about the increased
number of people who would come to the Barrow as a result of a hard
surface cycle track. No
proper study has been done.
But remember, this is now a shared facility for walkers and
cyclists. And they both
matter. Nearly 600,000
people from overseas took walking holidays in Ireland in 2012.
That’s nearly 600,000 walkers while 171,000 took golf
holidays and 149,000 took cycling holidays.
Walkers are big business and this is a walkers’ Paradise..
But they all
matter, walkers and cyclists.
They are all so welcome on the line. My own two brothers
cycle the line every day. Some of those cyclists from abroad
went on Trip Advisor to give five star reviews to the Barrow towpath
cycle. What words did they use? Peaceful, tranquil, quiet,
undiscovered. We meddle with this at our peril.
And remember.
Not every tourism offer is about mass markets; buses full of
people and traffic and noise and instant photo opportunities of
famous landmarks. Some
holidays allow you to discover things gently, slowly, around the
next green corner, to have an experience of the wild that you find
all by yourself.
MOVE FAST
We have to
move fast if we are to save the grassy line, because this proposal
is going to move much quicker than you think.
I heard last night through Leader contacts that this proposal
could go for planning permission before Christmas.
We thought we had longer.
Save the Barrow Line as a group will lodge an objection and
we will be looking for those of you who have signed a petition to
sign up again when we finally get the official proposal and can set
up online an objection form. If it gets planning permission, we will
appeal it to An Bord Pleanala.
PROTECTION ORDER
In the meantime, the Save the
Barrow Line campaign are also going to propose that the new Draft
Development Plan for Co. Carlow 2015-2021 should contain a
Protection Order on the existing surface of the towpath.
This would mean that the surface could not be changed and if
repair work needed to be done, that the original grassy sod surface
would have to be restored.
So please go online to keep up to date.
Please sign our petition online.
And when the time comes, please sign our online objection to
planning permission.
And remember how people outside the country see this.
Resonance Consultants are an international consulting company hired
by Failte Ireland’s to look at marketing the East and South Region
of the country. And this
is what they had to say: ‘In sharp contrast to the ruggedness of the
western seaboard experience, the East & South region of the country
is more complex, more understated, yet equally intriguing. A verdant
tapestry that has been worked, reworked and layered from the
earliest times, its appeal is deduced rather than declared.’
They have been hearing about the plan to put a hard track down the
river line -and here is their comment on the Resonance Co Facebook
link of 30th July -
https://www.facebook.com/ResonanceCo?ref=ts&fref=ts
‘A unique path of grass by a river of sublime peace. Should it be
changed?’
Should it be changed? I
think the answer is no.