Two sections of a planned greenway linking Cornelscourt to Cherrywood in south Co Dublin have been dropped by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
The €3.7 million project initially envisaged a 2.3km Cabinteely greenway, in four sections from Cornelscourt village to Cherrywood.
The proposed urban greenway, travelling from north to south saw the route begin at Cornelscourt village before travelling into The Park housing estate where it would run through the Glen View Drive area, before continuing on into Cabinteely Park, crossing the Brennanstown Road and into Cherrywood where it would serve some high density housing and link up with a number of Cherrywood cycle trails.
Councillors were told the greenway would serve cyclists, pedestrians and “wheelers” – people who used wheelchairs, buggies and other forms of personal mobility.
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Officials said the public consultation revealed some 44 per cent of responses were in favour of the project, with 48 per cent against. A further seven per cent were in favour of the project with modifications, giving a slight majority, 51 per cent, in favour of the overall scheme, officials said.
However, councillors engaged in an at-times heated row over “template” submissions to the public consultation after a council report said some “450 of these [postcards] were delivered together”.
The responses also included some 350 emails of a template nature, officials said.
Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Clark said the postcards had been generally opposed to the greenway, while the emails had been generally in favour.
He told the meeting: “I certainly would not discount 350 residents making a response as part of a residents’ group.”
Green Party councillor Eva Dowling questioned where the postcards came from, remarking that she wanted to know who was the printer, and who had paid for the cards to be printed.
Council officials said they had done “a pretty rigorous” analysis of the responses and had found just 79 responses which were obvious duplicates. “There were duplicates on both sides,” an official said.
Consultants for the project said some 45 per cent of the responses were concerned with safety issues.
Residents of The Park housing estate had questioned whether it was a good idea to bring many more people into their quiet residential area. Others questioned why pedestrians and cyclists would be sharing the same road space, while further questions were raised about the safe use of e-bikes and e-scooters.
Cllr Tom Kivlehan (Green Party) said he was surprised by the concerns raised by residents in the Glen area of The Park housing estate. He said the route would cover just 700m of the road and he himself had seen cars doing 50-60km/h along that stretch of road. “The road is far more dangerous than any cycleway would be,” he said.
On a vote, councillors decided to support the chief executive’s recommendation that two sections, from Cornelscourt Village to Glen Lawn Drive and from Glen Lawn Drive to Cabinteely Park would be deleted from the project.
The greenway will now proceed through Cabinteely Park where there will be a link to the N11, and across Brennanstown Road to Cherrywood Green where it will link up with other cycle routes.
