Fingal Moves Forward On Skerries Active Travel Plan following Public Consultation

In September 2022 Fingal County Council launched a public consultation on an Active Travel Plan for Skerries, aimed at improving the town for residents and visitors alike. The public consultation ran until early November and used street surveys, workshops in schools, engagement withthe general public, online surveys and suggestion boxes placed around the town to gather the opinions and comments of those living, working in, and visiting the town.

The public consultation was the first in a series of steps to develop and Active Travel Plan for Skerries town and following the completion of the consultation process, Fingal County Council has now begun the process of tendering for an integrated design team comprised of engineering and construction specialists.

Director of Services for Environment, Climate Action and Active Travel, David Storey said: ‘Finding the right team is key to creating a successful plan that the people of Skerries and the surrounding areas can get behind. We received a wealth of insightful feedback in the public consultation process and with this in hand we have now created a brief tailored to meet the very specific needs of this unique project. We are looking forward to appointing an integrated design team with the ideal mix of expertise to fulfil that brief and create a positive vision for the future of Active Travel in Skerries.’

Senior Executive Engineer with the Active Travel unit, Breen Doris, says that Skerries requires a unique approach: ‘Skerries is a busy town, and we want to ensure that as its young population and its popularity with visitors continue to grow, the right supporting facilities and infrastructure are in place. By creating safer walking and cycling opportunities we will protect the character of Skerries as a town where enjoying outdoor pursuits, supporting local business and being part of a healthy, safe community is part of life.

As the brief is so unique, we believe taking the time now to procure and appoint an integrated design team with appropriate expertise for this project is the right thing to do and spending time to get this right at the outset will help us to achieve the very best outcomes for Skerries.’

Once appointed, the integrated design team will write an Active Travel Plan for Skerries and will develop the proposals within it based on feedback from the public consultation. These ideas will be presented to the community as a Draft Active Travel Plan for Skerries before being finalised.

Once the Active Travel Plan for Skerries is finalised Fingal County Council will then work on delivering individual projects, seeking necessary permissions and funding for each and communicating with the public before implementation.

For regular updates on the status of this project please visit https://www.fingal.ie/activetravel/skerries