Planning process for controversial west Mayo Greenway is 'a long and expensive charade'

Opponents of the preferred route option of the controversial Murrisk Greenway have criticised the greenway's planning process describing it as 'a long and expensive charade'.

In a lengthy statement seen by The Mayo News, the Belclare to Murrisk committee, which opposes the preferred route option of the Belclare to Murrisk Greenway, set out their reasons why they feel that the lengthy planning process has been an abuse of power.

The committee also described recent comments made by Westport-based councillor Peter Flynn where he claimed nimbyism and selfishness in communities is holding back development as 'inaccurate and insulting' but added his comments shed a light on the 'wider approach taken by Mayo County Council and the National Roads Office as they attempt to implement an unpopular proposal'.

The committee reiterated that they are not against the Greenway project but feel that the best option is to bring it along the R335 Westport to Louisburgh road which was originally proposed by Mayo County Council in 2020.

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They stated that the preferred route option will go behind homes and go through farms, wetlands and woodland where no road or right of way exists and claimed no 'meaningful engagement, or attempt to explain the reasons behind the council’s consistent support for the new route, has taken place'. They also slammed attempts to discredit people opposing the preferred route.

“Anyone who has expressed support for the original coastal option or raised concerns about the new option, is subject to ad hominem remarks that seek to discredit them, rather than address the points which they make. They have been called: ‘selfish’, ‘self-centred’, ‘trump-like’, ‘nimby’s’, who are ‘hoodwinked’, ‘anti-greenway’, ‘clowns’, and ‘not welcome in this county’. The authorities have sought to develop the plan outside of public reach,” the statement read.

The emerging preferred route option which was announced in February 2024 will see the Greenway go off road from Aughavale Cemetery via the townlands of Cloonagh, Kiladangan and Deerpark towards Murrisk and will cut through land at the foot of Croagh Patrick.

The project which is being delivered by Mayo County Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland is currently going through the design and evaluation stage and the final route is expected to come before the local councillors for approval later this year.

Under the new TII guidelines, the land will be independently valued and if there is an agreement between all parties, a voluntary land acquisition agreement will be signed. However, if there is no agreement the TII can go through a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) procedure to acquire the land.

The committee claimed that the offer by the authorities to meet affected landowners has been 'overshadowed by the threat of CPOs' and criticised the council's engagement process with the public.

“This so-called ‘consultation phase’ is a textbook example of Arnstein’s 1969 ‘Ladder of Citizen Participation’, where consultation is defined as a window dressing ritual, and tokenistic. Effectively the authorities use a process whereby the citizenry are removed from any decision-making, while being given the impression of participation. 

“This is achieved using multiple bodies, state, semi-state, and private, at various stages of a procedure designed to deliver a project without interference. There is dispersed responsibility and so no singular accountability. And they are self-reinforcing. The private consultants will provide the justification for the preferred route, providing the appearance of a decision reached by due process. This has been a long and expensive charade.”

They also questioned why the reasons for the preferred route option have not been made public despite their requests for information.

“The product of which, the Multi-Criteria Assessment, which has taken two years to produce, is not available to the public, and will not be made available until after a planning decision has been made, either by the councillors in the municipal district, or, if the bureaucrats succeed in bypassing our elected representatives, then by An Bord Pleanála. We are not permitted to see, much less comment, on the reasoning behind option 2, we are not even informed that option 2 is the preferred route.

“Why? Because the process shields the authorities from scrutiny. No number of questions have elicited responses. There has been no meaningful engagement. At no point was there ever any discussion of, or consideration for, the original coastal route - a route which required the destruction of not one building, and which the council planned and mapped to the metre in 2020. At what cost we do not know as the council has responded to FOI [Freedom of Information] requests with conflicting accounts.

“Instead, supporters of the original coastal option are met with insults and accusations of misinformation.”

The committee also set out questions which they believe the MCA needs to address "clearly, logically and honestly including how 'CPOs be used to build a cycle route through gardens, fields, forests, and wetland habitats when there is a less environmentally damaging alternative extending the width of the main road?'

Another question they raised is how can the preferred route option be deemed as accessible, practical and usable when it rises 60 metres above sea level and only has drop off and pick up points at Aughavale Cemetery and Croagh Patrick car park.

They also questioned the 'cost benefit analysis' made for the two options and what assessment has been made of the safety of one option over the other. They also asked where Mayo County Council and TII plan to build the greenway from Murrisk to Louisburgh and if they will continue to 'venture into private property, or are there any plans for improving the R335'.

“TII guidelines are just that, not rules or laws; they, as well as TII, exist to help achieve, not hinder, what is in the public interest. Rather than hide behind TII, Mayo County Council and the National Roads Office should focus their energies on upgrading the east west connection between Westport and Louisburgh, the R335, and build the cycle way that is needed alongside it,” the statement concluded.