NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK Newsletter June 2020 Covid-19 Special

NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK 
Newsletter June 2020 
Covid-19 Special

This picture was taken on the 4 May in the middle of the Covid-19 Lockdown. A typical mobile phone shot taken spontaneously on turning the corner from Church Street onto the shore at Warrenpoint it is not! The eerie stillness evoked in the picture is real. With over 95% of air traffic grounded there are no condensation trails in the skies above the lough.  The streets are almost devoid of cars and the only sound is birdsong! The skies have never been clearer since the 1930's! 

In the five years that I have been involved with the NWBCN, the bridge at Narrow Water has been called everything from 'a vanity project' and 'a misty-eyed fantasy' to simply 'a waste of money.' It was regularly derided by the Southern Relief Road lobby. The NWBCN also maintain that the bridge often critically failed to engage local council officials in a way that fully reflected the overwhelming support for the project among the elected members of Newry Mourne & Down District Council.

And from both governments all we got was the promise to look at 'options'!
For the NWBCN the objectives of the Narrow Water Bridge were always clear; to unite communities around the lough and to capitalise on the continuing growth of active sustainable tourism such as cycling and walking. 
With another Brexit show-down looming amid an accelerating climate emergency these objectives have never been more critical!

In 2015 the NI Department of Infrastructure set out its plans for the development of cycling in the community over what now seems like a disastrously leisurely 25 year timeframe!

The recent initiatives announced by Minister Nicola Mallon to urgently integrate safe cycling into city life in Belfast, Derry and Newry is the clearest recognition to date that we have almost run out of time! If we "follow the science" we may have ten years, if we are lucky, to make the changes that we all know are necessary. 
 
The NWBCN look forward to reconvening the meeting with the Minister originally scheduled for 18 March and postponed due to Covid when we will impress upon her the pivotal nature of the Narrow Water Bridge as a cross-border cycling interconnector on the East Coast and the contribution the bridge will make to the cycling grid in the area. The NWBCN will further argue that only the 2012 approved design will fully meet the needs of the community in providing vehicular access around the lough while preserving the critical "blue way" asset of the Newry Canal.

Finally we at the NWBCN would like to express our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of those throughout Ireland North and South who have died as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Our heartfelt thanks go to all frontline workers especially to those in the NHS and HSE.
 
Adrian O'Hare Secretary NWBCN

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