Have your say & protect our local biodiversity on the Royal Canal

The construction of the Royal Canal Greenway presents a landmark opportunity to marry best practice environmental design with an active travel route. Reduction of car usage in the city is hugely welcomed and should be prioritised.

The Royal Canal Greenway Phase 4 — Crossguns to Ashtown 4.2km section’s amended planning application causes serious concerns in three key areas that overlap:

1 — Narrowing of the Royal Canal
The plans to narrow three locations of the canal channel by substantial amounts for the greenway should be reconsidered. Not only will this be exponentially expensive, it could ultimately reduce the area of public realm at the Industrial Estate sections. Any future private developments could easily and effectively erase remaining green space at the edge of the green/blue canal zone. Based on the recent extreme changes in rainfall patterns, the possibility of exacerbating the potential for eutrophication and flooding, through the narrowing, additional hard surfaces and removal of mitigating actions provided by mature areas of planting, urgently needs to be assessed and plans for future proofing introduced.

2 — Destruction of biodiversity
The narrowing process, construction and new lighting scheme is destructive of rare and naturalised freshwater habitat. If the lighting scheme is miscalculated, it will adversely affect resident bat species such as light-sensitive Daubenton’s. It’s also abundantly clear that the project getting an otter derogation licence means the small local population will be negatively impacted.

3 — Historic contamination
Heavy concentrations of decades-old creosote are dormant deep under the sediment in locations mapped in the planning documents. The canal channel narrowing process is problematic as there are no specifics on process for removal but only suggesting an unnamed third-party contractor that will be responsible. This process needs to demonstrate proper assessment as the risks to local residents, flora, fauna and ultimately Dublin Bay, an EU Area of Conservation (SAC), and Bull Island, a NATURA 2000 site, is lethally serious.

It’s never been more urgent to create sustainable and biodiversity-friendly infrastructure that acknowledges future scenarios. We urge you to reconsider the Royal Canal channel narrowing scheme and instead look at how people and nature currently use this space now to explore how this can be  safely and beneficially developed for both. We believe a full Environmental Impact Assessment is necessary to establish the baseline data necessary for this process.

List of local councillors & authority figures to contact: