Cork County Council is proposing to advance the planning and design of two stages of the West Cork Railway Greenway.

Efforts will focus on the Cork to Kinsale and Ballinscarthy to Courtmacsherry stages in what would be the first phase in the opening up of the abandoned lines of the former Cork to Bandon and South Coast Railway as a dedicated off-road walking and cycling route. With a network of over 180km of former railway lines connecting many of the towns and villages in West Cork, the Greenways project has the long term potential for the area to be developed into Ireland's premier off-road cycling holiday destination as well as being an important recreational amenity for local communities.

This move to progress the development of the Greenway builds on initial feasibility studies which were published in 2011 and 2012, and has been bolstered by the recent award of €60,000 under the National Cycle Network Seed Funding Scheme which was devised with the aim of providing start-up support to local authorities for cycle projects considered to have merit from the perspective of generating recreational, tourist and economic activity. Of the 35 applications nationwide which bid for this funding, only 12 were selected and Cork County Council was successful in securing Seed Funding of €30,000 for two projects. It is hoped that this funding will place Cork County Council in a position to submit a well developed proposal under the next round of the National Cycle Network Funding Programme (2014-2016) which is scheduled for the autumn.

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Acknowledging that the Seed Funding has been an enormous boost for the project, Cork County Council's Greenways Project Manager, Clare Cronin, stressed that the development of the proposed Greenway will only be possible with the good will, generosity and support of the landowners along the route.

She pointed to the success of the Great Western Greenway in Mayo where landowners have given their permission to develop the Greenway under a 'permissive access agreement', resulting in a huge boost to the local economy and tourism sector as well as providing a new focus for the communities along the route.

Cork County Council's Greenways team will be getting in touch with landowners over the coming weeks to ask for their consent to carry out an initial survey along the proposed route. As soon as this survey has been carried out it is planned to meet with landowners and talk to them on an individual basis about the proposal and that the more detailed planning and design stages will follow from there.

(CD)