A bridge too far...

We love our town. And we’re being forced into going through a very expensive

Court process to prove it.

 

Bray is a seaside town surrounded by Wicklow’s granite mountains, with the

River Dargle running through its heart. Our local council have decided we need

another bridge to ease our suffocating traffic congestion – but it’s the wrong

design, answering the wrong question, in the wrong place.

 

• Swans rest and relax at Bray Harbour Swan Sanctuary. Swans can’t see straight ahead; the bridge design means it is only a matter of time before the fatal collisions occur when they fly downriver. We know this from witnessing swan deaths and serious injuries at the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin, where volunteers are left to pick up their beautiful broken bodies.

 

• Intended for public transport, pedestrian and cyclists only, the bridge will be

built close to the harbour. But it’s cars that need to be diverted from our town

centre, not the buses! And pedestrians and cyclists will be moved from a perfectly safe route to the harbour, under the railway, to cross a bridge whose own Road Safety Audit was damning as it highlighted how dangerous many aspects of the

design were for them. (Link Below)

 

• To access the bridge in this location, a high, wide embankment is proposed to cross a floodplain which has served as an escape route for flooding in hundreds of homes upstream in Little Bray since people first moved there. This access road will reduce the size of a floodplain already constricted by a flood defence wall that defends the floodplain against flooding!

 

• …And the proposed ‘landing pad’ for the bridge, on the other side of the river,

is a narrow road between a small housing estate and a railway underpass to the

seafront, set at an angle to approaching traffic…

 

Yet Wicklow County Council decided that this proposal did not need an

Environmental Impact Assessment – and, incredibly, our Planning Board agreed with them. An EIA would examine the issues outlined above, so we’re asking for a Judicial Review of the Board’s decision that this report is not necessary.

In Ireland, that’s a costly process. We need to reach an initial target of €10,000. And we need your help to do it. Please help us by donating what you can - and by

sharing this page. Thank you so much.

 

Further info at www.savebray.ie

Ireland AM Feature 

Flight Path https://youtu.be/WaDVXK00kxQ

Road Safety Audit https://www.wicklow.ie/Portals/0/adam/Documents/0dhBRy7-7kKinU82VPYiDg/Link/App%20I%20-%20Road%20Safety%20Audit.pdf