Active travel plan for small towns and villages in Mayo
AN active travel plan is to be developed for Mayo to ensure smaller towns and villages are not excluded from future funding streams.
National Transport Authority (NTA) policy is that it will only fund projects listed on a transport plan - plans for Ballina, Castlebar and Westport are underway.
Safe routes to school is another programme, from An Taisce, with 13 projects in Mayo.
However, there was concern within Mayo County Council's active travel team that there will be towns and villages that would not come under a plan and so be ruled out for funding.
Senior engineer Cathy Mellett, at a Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District meeting, told councillors that those concerns have been raised with the NTA and they have agreed to fund projects that will come out of an active travel plan for Mayo.
That plan will be produced by the active travel team in Mayo County Council, featuring smaller towns and villages.
Mayo has received an allocation of €4.5 million for projects this year. A sum of €1.2m is allocated to the municipal district where projects include safe routes to schools and the Ballinrobe urban greenway.
Cycle Connects is another NTA project stream, connecting towns through cycle routes, but it is at early stages, elected members were told.
Councillor Michael Burke said there was a strong case to connect Cong and Cross in south Mayo. There is a huge connection between the two villages and lot of people were crying out for this.
He was supported in this by Councillor Damien Ryan who said there is a lot of activity and pedestrian safety is a priority there.
On the active travel plan, he asked that there be consultation with councillors so they have an opportunity to feed into it.
Councillor John Caulfield said the plan was crucial to draw down funding for the villages, otherwise rural areas would not receive any funding.
The whole concept of what is active travel was also clarified at the meeting. It is going from point A to B to carry out a task, for example from home to the shop or school. The trip has to have a purpose as opposed to being recreational.