NARROW WATER BRIDGE

COMMUNITY NETWORK 

Newsletter July 2023

Campaign News...Narrow Water Bridge Tender Process moves toward...NWBCN challenges local council Newry Mourne and Down...

Narrow Water Bridge Tender Process moves toward completion

Although inching forward slowly and appearing to take forever, the Narrow Water Bridge, until recently the stuff of myth in the local community, is clearly moving towards delivery. With the tender process due to be completed in October and work beginning in early 2024, informed commentators expect the bridge to be delivered on time.

This is precisely the time to revisit the reasons why this bridge is needed. For many years the NWBCN has set the objectives of the bridge as:

  1. Uniting communities around Carlingford Lough.

  2. Providing a boost to much needed and sustainable tourism.

  3. Facilitating the critical growth of Active Travel in this era of dangerous climate change.

Objectives 1 and 2 are relatively straightforward and will naturally flow from the delivery of the Bridge. The fulfilling of these objectives will finally bring to an end the Border Twilight Zone in which communities, especially Warrenpoint, the largest town on the Lough, have languished in for decades.

Objective 3, however, arguably the most important objective of all, requires a little more visionary thinking.

For some years now the NWBCN has argued that the Narrow Water Bridge delivers a unique set of circumstances, which will provide, for a relatively very small draw on public finances and zero environmental impact, an opportunity to connect two centres of population with an active travel solution along a road that is demonstrably unsuitable for the traffic currently using it.

When the bridge is in place, the Omeath Road (B79/R173) automatically becomes a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. The resident population is low and there are practically no entry/exit roads. It is bordered by forest on one side with a navigation canal and sea inlet on the other.

While initially our proposal caused some alarm in the immediate area, we are convinced that when people in the community understand what we are in fact saying, they will come on board.

The Narrow Water Bridge, even without restrictions, will act as a disincentive to use the Omeath Road by offering a safer and more efficient option - the A2 Dual carriageway.

Resident traffic will be unaffected save for appropriate speed reductions to protect vulnerable road users ie cyclists and walkers.

A distinct and rare advantage of the NWBCN proposal is that it can be implemented on a trial basis quickly and at minimal cost.

The image above is an example of a road in Denmark, remarkably similar to the B79/R173, which has been successfully adapted to accommodate cyclists and walkers in a low traffic area. Such schemes have met with widespread public acceptance in Denmark and the Netherlands. They deliver enormous benefits in terms of road safety, health and quality of life improvements while contributing greatly to emissions reduction.

Over the past three years the NWBCN has been able to promote its proposals via the NWBCN Newsletter. These proposals have inspired great public interest and have attracted significant political support More importantly however, our proposals were met with a clear endorsement from Nichola Mallon, former DfI Minister and her officials.

NWBCN challenges Newry Mourne and Down

Unfortunately our proposals cut no ice with NMDDC. They had their own ideas. The first of which was to cut a path through the forest on the land side of the Omeath Road - the wrong side of the road as it turned out! The Department for Infrastructure correctly rejected the proposal.

The Council have now produced a plan that is even more environmentally destructive. They are determined, without any public consultation, and at significantly greater expense to the public purse, to build a boardwalk along the seaward side of the Omeath Road. Moreover, the Council plan to do this in an Area of Special Scientific Interest within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty!

The Council's proposals are now the subject of Planning Applications  LA07/2023/2587/F and LA07/2023/2593/F and can only be challenged through the local planning process. The NWBCN has indeed challenged by lodging a formal objection.

The Council's plans, in our opinion, raise serious health and safety issues, are ecologically and environmentally destructive, and will do precious little to reduce motorised traffic. Apart from an enormous waste of scarce public funds in these austere times, it represents a most egregious example of 'planning in a vacuum'. The Council, in its proposals, the NWBCN will argue, fails to take proper account of the most transformative piece of infrastructure in over a half a century - the Narrow Water Bridge!

 

The NWBCN will set out in full its objection to the NMDDC Planning Applications in a NWBCN Newsletter Special in the coming weeks.

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Adrian O'Hare

Secretary 

NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK 

NWBCN 4 Mary Street Warrenpoint BT34 3NT

www.narrowwaterbridge.co.uk  
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