A resolution to the long-running dispute over the development of a coastal cycleway in Sandymount is on the horizon with Dublin City Council examining its incorporation into new flood defences.
Meetings have begun between the council’s traffic and flood divisions on the design of a cycle scheme which could use a wide new boardwalk and promenade along Strand Road being developed to protect the coastal suburb from floods.
The Court of Appeal last year overturned a High Court judgment that had blocked the implementation of the six-month trial of the path on the coastal road. The High Court had ruled in 2021, in a case taken by Independent councillor Mannix Flynn and Peter Carvill of the Serpentine Avenue, Tritonville and Claremont Roads group, that the council should have obtained planning permission to run the trial.
The Court of Appeal determined this was an error and the council could have implemented the measure using its own powers under the Road Traffic Act.
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The project, first proposed by previous council chief executive Owen Keegan in August 2020, involved replacing a lane of traffic with a two-lane cycle path. This would result in a one-way traffic system with cars allowed to travel southbound only as far as the Merrion Gates, a distance of about 2.5km.
Despite having legal clearance to pursue the path on the road for the last 18 months, the scheme was not progressed.
Locally there has been support for incorporating the cycle scheme into new flood defences. However, when the options for the defences were presented in recent weeks, no cycle facilities were included, despite several options involving stretches of new promenade up to 10m wide.
Senior council engineer Brian Hennelly, who is leading the flood defence project, said although the cycle lane was not part of the original project brief he has started talks with the council’s traffic division with a view to incorporating a cycle scheme into the defences.
“We had a meeting with [the] traffic [division] and we’ve advised them where we’re at. They have advised us they are looking at a cycle scheme at the moment, and if we can incorporate it, we will work with them.”
Flynn said he “absolutely 100 per cent” supported the incorporation of the cycle scheme into the flood defences.
“This is what we always promoted from the very start. Putting in flood defences without incorporating a dedicated cycleway would be crazy,” he said.
“The constituency has already spoken very loudly on this issue, but this would be for everyone in the city, a unique destination. This is what everyone wants, to ignore that would be an appalling insult.”
Green Party councillor Hazel Chu said if both projects could be pursued in tandem, without either being delayed, it would be a positive approach.
“This is the perfect time to look at these projects as a whole. If the floods section and the transport section can work together to build in a cycle path that works, that is safe and that does not impinge on the biosphere, then that would be great.”
Public consultation on the flood alleviation scheme is open until November 26th. The preferred option will be selected early next year in advance of an application to An Coimisiúin Pleanála. Construction of the defences could start in 2029.
