The judicial review hearings in relation to the South Kerry Greenway are due to take place in the High Court this week (June 23 – 25).
A legal challenge has been brought by farmer James Clifford alongside environmentalist Peter Sweetman, and another brought by the Greenway Information Group.
Delays are not unusual in what has been a lengthy 10-year saga for the South Kerry Greenway.
In January of this year, when the news emerged that requests for judicial reviews had been lodged and subsequently granted, there were mixed reactions and emotions.
Back in November 2020, An Bord Pleanála approved the controversial project, a 32km greenway stretching from Cahersiveen to Glenbeigh.
South Kerry Greenway ‘the only hope’
The project was first proposed in 2011 and after failing to reach agreement with landowners, the local authority decided to acquire 115ac of land by compulsory purchase order (CPO). An Bord Pleanála confirmed the CPO with some modifications in November.
The greenway is proposed to mainly be constructed along the route of the Southern and Western Railway, which has not been in use for decades.
A local councillor told Agriland earlier this year that the greenway is “the only hope” left for the area.
“This was a lifeline,” Fianna Fáil Councillor Michael Cahill, who has long supported the project, said.
“I know that land is valuable, and there’s this exceptionally close association with land here in this country, but there were a lot of people that had big plans and were prepared to invest and borrow and employ people.
“I was contacted by people who had emigrated and when permission was granted, they said they now had something to come home to. This is the scale of it.
“We’re not going to get a big industry down this neck of the woods, so this would have suited the region big-time and it would be all year-round.
“When we’re all dead and gone, this was going to serve generations to come.
“This was an opportunity to bring that life back and get rid of this dereliction – bring people back and keep them home.”
Consultation remains the ‘best approach’
The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has previously said that while it recognises the importance of projects like the South Kerry Greenway in terms of the potential for agri-tourism and the promotion of economic activity in rural areas, consultation remains the “best approach”.
The IFA said that it’s committed to working with all agencies to develop a Voluntary Land Acquisition Agreement strategy for amenity projects like greenways, which would avoid the use of CPOs.
“It would also deliver on the requirement in the National Greenways Strategy that local authorities must adopt ‘a consultative and proactive manner with potentially affected landowners, that is sensitive to their needs; that maximises their support for, and goodwill towards, the proposed greenway’,” former chairman of Kerry IFA Pat O’Driscoll said.
“Regrettably…this did not happen in respect of the South Kerry Greenway.”