Council gives guarded support to greenway plan

While he stopped short of agreeing to drive plans to develop an Athlone to Clonmacnoise Greenway link via the ancient pilgrim route, Westmeath County Council's CEO, Pat Gallagher said he “would like to find a way to help the project along.”

The Offaly native made the comments at Monday's Westmeath County Council meeting held in Athlone Civic Centre after Cllr John Dolan encouraged the council to get behind the project which is one of several local applications bidding for some of the Just Transition Fund pot of €11 million.

The newly formed Athlone to Clonmacnoise Greenway Group is looking for funding to develop the initial phase of the cycleway, around 3km, and a second, more longer-term development which would see a light rail service put in place linking Athlone to Shannonbridge across the bog.

At the most recent Athlone-Moate Municipal District meeting, Cllr John Dolan (FG) had called on Westmeath County Council in a motion to get behind the ambitious tourism and amenity proposals, and drive it forward, which was supported by all of his colleagues.

While Mr Gallagher said on Monday that he was aware of the discussion at district level, and he is supportive of the plans, becoming the “lead applicant for the project is a quite a different level of support.”

The council chief said he would like to “would like to find a way to help the project along” and is happy to work with the community group and Offaly County Council in a bid to bring it forward.

At Monday's meeting, Cllr Frankie Keena (FF) reminded the council that there are other local projects in Baylin, Moate and Ballinahown also bidding for Just Transition funding too, and while supportive of the Clonmacnoise plan he urged the executive to give an “equal push to try and get all four over the line.”

Initially, the Greenway project aims to connect Clonbonny, around six kilometres from Athlone town to a point where the Bord na Móna railway crosses the river Boor, close to the Offaly/Westmeath border, thus giving access to areas like Bloomhill, Ballyduff, and Clonascra before moving onwards to Clonmacnoise via the ancient pilgrim route. This would cut out the need to use the busy Birr road to access the ancient monastic site and would mean around 3km of pathway being developed across bog or farmland depending on the route picked.

Bord na Móna workers could be utilised on the project from the design stage to completion with costs paid from the Just Transition Fund should their application be successful, according to the Athlone to Clonmacnoise Greenway Group.

Barry Kehoe is the Westmeath County Council representative on the Midlands Just Transition Team which is being steered by Offaly County Council and headed up by Kieran Mulvey.

€11 million is available through the Just Transition Fund, set up to alleviate the effects of the forthcoming job losses in the peat industry as Bord na Móna winds down operations and moves to other activities.