Seán Kyne
Question:133. Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the model being used, including issues such as the land acquisition and access, to develop greenway projects. [4346/15]
View answerTuesday, 3 February 2015
Questions (133)
Written answers
With regard to the various models used to deliver individual projects it is a matter for the County Council in charge of delivering a specific project to consider access to land on a case by case basis and take a multi-criteria approach in the route selection process. In the event of a proposed route traversing private land there are a number of options that can be considered by the authority, the first being the permissive access model. This is a worthy mechanism for certain cycling and walking projects, particularly on a local level. It is a low cost community based model that provides access to the natural environment without interfering with the property rights of the landowners.
While I fully support the need to consider negotiated financial agreements or, if required, CPO, I certainly recommend that all other options are considered before land purchase is decided on. There is no one size fits all approach to this.
As stated above, negotiated permissive access from the perspectives of cost and public ownership has value but, for projects of national scale, consideration must be given to land purchase by agreement or if necessary by CPO. In the context of developing major cycling infrastructure projects that traverse long sections of privately owned land and involve major state investment, it would be precarious to rely on permissive access where the associated agreements may be withdrawn at any time without recourse to the State.