NARROW WATER BRIDGE

COMMUNITY NETWORK 

Newsletter

October 2022

Taoiseach speaks at Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown County Kildare.

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So there we have it from the top! The funding is there and the project is 'underway'!

This is the first clear and unequivocal indication that the funding is now in place. Up to this point the only reference to funding has been the provision of three million euro to bring the project to tender stage.

All credit to the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and his Shared Island Fund. The NWBCN salutes him! A bhuíochas ortsa a Mhichil!

While we know what the Taoiseach means when he refers to projects that have been talked about for decades it certainly took more than talking to get the Narrow Water Bridge to this stage.

"Make no mistake about it," says Jim Boylan, Chairman of the NWBCN and veteran campaigner for the bridge commenting on Micheál Martin's recent statement. ''This has been a long and hard-fought campaign with twists, turns and disappointments going back many years."

The greatest shock and disappointment came with the eleventh hour collapse of the project in 2013. A miscalculation of costs, inexplicable to this day, and subsequent political mishandling deprived the area of an opportunity to move on from its post-troubles Border Twilight Zone, effectively squandering a decade of development which would have secured great benefits for the whole community.

Funds were ultimately withdrawn, political will ebbed and people understandably turned away.

 

"It was out of this disillusionment the Narrow Water Bridge Community Network was born." says Jim.

In the ensuing years the NWBCN faced an ever growing lobby which saw the Southern Relief Road crossing (a scheme to reduce traffic congestion south of Newry) as "the only bridge in town". While the NWBCN has never opposed the SRR, it fought hard to defeat an attitude evident within political and business groupings (and indeed very prevalent among high-level local Council officials) that the Narrow Water Bridge was no longer a priority.

It wasn't until 2017 at a stakeholders' meeting, convened by the relevant departments North and South that the NWBCN was finally able to establish that the bridge was a sustainable tourism infrastructure project complementary to any strategic traffic management role that the SRR crossing may have.

This represented a major breakthrough for the NWBCN and allowed the group to continue to differentiate the Narrow Bridge from any rival scheme.

Things however appeared to be moving much more slowly in Dublin where every public utterance on the Narrow Water Bridge was framed as "options for a crossing at Narrow Water."

This was very much in evidence when Deputy Malcolm Noonan (standing in for Minister Eamon Ryan), as late as 24 May last year, in answer to a request for an update on the bridge outlined the "options'' as basically no bridge, incorporation with a Southern Relief Road Crossing or a cycle bridge! He concluded with the following:

 

"The overall assessment of the case for the Narrow Water Bridge, including in the context of the development of a wider tourism initiative for the region, is not at a stage where it is a clearly defined and a costed scheme."

 

We were stunned and angry and made our views known primarily to Nichola Mallon, then Minister for Infrastructure and committed supporter of the project.

On the exact nature of what happened next we can only speculate of course. Perhaps a concerted level of concentration of minds not witnessed throughout the long history of the Narrow Water Bridge Campaign took place!

What we do know is that the 29 June, some five weeks later, Micheál Martin announced the project!

Momentum was clearly gathering and on the 15 October 2021 we, with a number of locally elected and supportive politicians, met with Darragh O'Brien, Dáil Minster responsible for the delivery of the project and Nichola Mallon on site at Narrow Water.

The bridge would be built and to our great relief it would be built to the original 2012 design complete with cantilever lifting mechanism clearly visible in the unfurled artist's impression displayed above for the camera.

NWBCN has always seen the uniting of communities round the Lough and the fostering and development of active and sustainable tourism as the main objectives of the bridge. These objectives alone of course will have a truly transformative impact in the South Down and North Louth area.

In recent years however, the NWBCN has also tirelessly highlighted the contribution that the building of the Narrow Water Bridge will make towards emissions reduction in this era of climate breakdown.

 

If the Narrow Water Bridge is fully integrated in a meaningful Active Travel Strategy, to which both jurisdictions are now legislatively committed, we can effectively create Ireland’s First Cycle Expressway! 

(Click on NWBCN Newsletter link below for detail)

NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK NEWSLETTER June 2021

PROPOSAL Build the bridge and get Ireland's first Cycle Expressway FREE!

The publication by the Northern Ireland Open Government Network this week highlighting the alleged shortcomings in community engagement on matters of planning and development at NMDD has certainly struck a chord with the NWBCN.

Regrettably our relationship with Council officials has been, to say the least, in all matters to do with the Narrow Water Bridge and related Active Travel issues has been unnecessarily fraught. Our engagements were more often confrontational than collaborative. 

We are currently awaiting sight of a feasibility study concerning the Newry Greenway and a Newry to Rostrevor Cycle Path. The NWBCN pushed long and hard to make a meaningful contribution. With a long history of not being taken seriously by NMDD we do not have a lot of confidence that due weight will be given to our proposals.

In the run-up to the recent NI Assembly Elections we presented in detail our proposals to most of the political parties. We were delighted with the genuine level of cross-party and cross-community support for our proposals on the Cycle Expressway.

This represented also a major step forward for the Narrow Water Bridge Campaign. Unfortunately support for the bridge down the years was typically split along unionist and nationalist lines. As late as 2007 one senior Unionist politician described the Narrow Water Bridge as a misty eyed-project that would bring no economic benefit to the area!

It was indeed very heartening to receive the Ulster Unionist Party endorsement of the Cycle Expressway proposal, a clear indication of the increasingly broader acceptance of the benefits the bridge will deliver for all the community!

If there was a touch of electioneering to the glowing endorsements of the NWBCN proposals in May, the dysfunctionality of NI politics will, as usual, provide another opportunity to reaffirm commitment. This time we may even get all the parties to come on board with our proposals!

Time has now run out to restore the Stormont Assembly following the May Election with the DUP having failed to appoint a Speaker. This leaves a further election as the only legal recourse.

When exactly the fairly pointless election will take place we are not sure. The surprise u-turn, as some of the parties are calling it, on the promised immediate calling of an election by Chris Heaton-Harris, NI Secretary of State, has only added to the ever-increasing uncertainty.

The Narrow Water Bridge - a bridge over troubled water.

Adrian O'Hare

Secretary 

NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK 

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