CONTROVERSIAL plans to transform North Down’s coastal path into a greenway won’t have any significant impact on the environment of the area. That’s according to an expert report put together by consultancy firm AECOM on behalf of Ards and North Down Council, which has now been filed with planning authorities as part of the drive to build the greenway.
The environmental impact study states that the £7m plans would be completely acceptable as long as the correct measures are put in place to stop any potential pollution run-off from the construction process, as well as limiting noise during the 12 months of work needed to build it. The plans will see a 20-mile greenway built from Kinnegar outside Holywood, where it will link up with a planned greenway network in Belfast, along the existing coastal path to Bangor Marina, and then along Bangor’s coast to Ballyholme before heading out to Groomsport and Donaghadee.
Objectors had raised a host of issues with the coastal path section of the idea, arguing that the greenway would be more at risk of damage from coastal erosion and extreme weather, while the construction process would destroy animal habitats as well as causing disruption for nearby residents and pedestrians on the path. That’s all in addition to arguing against the principle of turning the coastal path into a greenway. The new AECOM study dismisses those objections, stating that there would be no lasting significant effects from the project as long as the correct mitigations and restrictions are followed by builders. Stating that the path can remain in use during the construction process, the report says that while some dust may be kicked up by machinery in building sites that will be ‘temporary in duration’ and overall ‘dust, air quality and climate emissions will be negligible’ with ‘no residual effect on air quality’.
Although people who live near the coastal path will be able to see construction sites, the report emphasises that visible work would be only be for a limited time; further, it states, builders will likely park on different access roads close to the area depending on what phase of the greenway project they’re working on, which will minimise disruption for residents. Although some loss of plants that could be used as habitat by animals is inevitable, the report states that ‘no potential [construction phases] would negatively impact’ any of the protected species that call the area home. The report also dismisses the idea that the greenway would be any more vulnerable to weather or erosion than the coastal path as it currently stands. The environmental study was delivered to planning authorities towards the end of August. The greenway plans have been on the go for several years and were consulted on in 2019, but became controversial over the past year and a half after formal planning applications were filed. The coastal path is now just over 50 years old, having been opened to the public in 1971 after a five-year heavy duty construction project.
The greenway plan would see two-fifths of it widened to between three and four metres across, with bridges added near the Royal Belfast Golf Club and at Grey Point Fort. The other three-fifths of the path is already more than three metres wide and will be resurfaced with a new coat of asphalt. Officials say the greenway plan will make the area safer for both pedestrians and cyclists, but objectors argue that doing so will destroy what they feel is an unspoiled and natural pathway. Instead, they argue, the coastal path should be improved for pedestrians only, with a new and entirely separate cycle lane running from Bangor to Belfast built somewhere else.
As a result of a campaign against the coastal path section of the scheme run by local residents, mainly people drawn from around the Bangor West and Helen’s Bay areas, several hundred objections to the entire Kinnegar to Donaghadee greenway project have now been filed with planners. The council has also agreed to run a second consultation on the scheme, after objectors repeatedly argued that they’d been kept in the dark about it.
