Council urged to press ahead with Duhallow greenway

CORK County Council has been urged to follow the lead of its Waterford counterpart and develop a dedicated ‘greenway’ for the Duhallow region, the first phase of which would be an 8km link between Kanturk and Newmarket.

Cllr John Paul O’Shea (FG) has said he intends to meet with senior council officials to discuss the proposal, which he claimed would help untap the “enormous tourism potential of the regions”.

Cllr O’Shea pointed out that 2016 report commissioned by IRD Duhallow determined that from both an engineering and social viewpoint the greenway would be “entirely feasible.”

“When you look at similar projects such as the Deise Greenway in Waterford you see the enormous potential it would have for the Duhallow region, particularly in terms of attracting visitors to the area,” said Cllr O’Shea.

He said that like the Deise Greenway, the Duhallow one would follow an old railway line, in this case the Kanturk-Newmarket route, which was closed down in 1963.

He said that he 2016 report, undertaken by project management firm O’Carroll Fitzgerald, found that the CIE no longer owned rights to the former railway line and that it passed through land now owned by 17 individual landowners.

“The report stated that approximately 60% of the railway line is overgrown with trees and vegetation. There is no evidence of any steel railway tracks in place, though in quite a number of areas the original fencing that was used is still in place,” said Cllr O’Shea.

“It proposed various fencing options along the railway line, taking into account the existence of points where a landowner needs access across the greenway for access with machinery or cattle.”

The O’Carroll Fitzgerald report estimated the proposed greenway would cost between €2.3 and €3 million to develop and while Cllr O’Shea conceded securing funding would be a major hurdle, there were avenues that could be explored to help ease the financial burden.

“Funding is a major element of this project and that will have to be explored. However, the 2016 report pointed out that the use of community employment schemes would greatly reduce labour costs for the project,” said Cllr O’Shea.

“For me, this is a project with enormous economic and tourism potential and so I will be engaging with Cork County Council to progress it and move it forward,” he added.