People and planet were given priority over a proposed greenway project as local Councillors vote 7-1 in favour of a proposal by Cllr Joe Behan and seconded by Cllr Dermot ‘Daisy’ O’Brien to stop the Swan River Greenway project before any more taxpayers money is wasted on a proposal that doesn’t have support among the people who will be most impacted and could potentially cause irreparable damage to the local ecosystem.
Cllr Dermot ‘Daisy’ O’Brien spoke about the decision,
“In the week that the inter parliamentary panel on climate change (IPCC) published a report confirming that the scientific evidence is unequivocal, ‘climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet’ we made the right decision at the Bray MD meeting.
People would be forgiven for thinking that a ‘Greenway’ is surely a positive thing but when you zoom in on this project there is essentially a proposal for a short cut from the Boghall Rd to Killarney road which would cut through private housing estates and an untouched area of nature at the heart of Bray.
The negative impact on play areas for children, safety of the community, existing natural ecosystems and the absence of broad support for the proposal presented us with a challenge as elected representatives to pull the plug now rather than waste more money on a project that clearly wasn’t viable.
