Roonagh Pier, which serves Clare Island and Inishturk. Councillors want to see the greenway brought out to this point to complete the Clew Bay loop.

No Mayo greenway extension to Roonagh Pier for 'a number of years'

IT will be a number of years before the Clew Bay Greenway link out to Louisburgh and Roonagh is completed.

The reality of the situation was spelt out to local councillors by Paul Hyland from the Roads Design Office in Mayo at a Westport-Belmullet Municipal District meeting this week.

New greenway developments are now under the remit of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), delivered through the roads office.

The link would be raised with TII, who are the funding authority, said Mr. Hyland, but he suspected their position will be that they need to deliver on those already funded before they would consider other elements of the route.

When those are delivered on they would have the support of TII to progress the rest of it, he said.

“But you are looking at a number of years,” said Mr. Hyland. “All it is is an aspiration at this moment in time.”

He set out the various stages that will have to be gone through, including appraisal, land negotiations, route selection, detailed design and construction.

“It will be a number of years before I see this loop completed,” he commented

Pushed by Councillor Peter Flynn for a time frame, Mr. Hyland said he could not answer that.

The councillor also questioned the Belclare to Murrisk section, why an agreed route solution is now being revisited, and also why the route option wasn't extending all the way out to Roonagh so it wasn't being done in a piecemeal approach.

Mr. Hyland said this is a standalone project. TII have reverted it back to route options as standards for developing greenways have changed.

Councillor Flynn said people were 'distraught' with what has happened over the last number of years.

They weren't even back at square one, they were at minus square one in terms of delivering the greenway to Roonagh.