Balrothery Active Travel Plan
Fingal County Council is developing an active travel plan for Balrothery that will identify projects to provide the infrastructure to support and encourage active travel. This webpage will be updated throughout the project.
The Plan
This plan will identify projects in the Balrothery area to provide the infrastructure that will support and encourage members of the public to use active travel modes such as walking, cycling, and scooting for short-distance journeys and provide links to access to public transport for medium-distance journeys.
These projects propose to include changes to the existing local road layout, locations for cycle parking or improvements to public spaces. The extents of the project are shown on the map.
Why is this important?
Fingal Council is committed to creating well-serviced and well-connected communities with reduced travel distances between home, work, education, and services that allow more people to undertake local journeys actively. This supports the health and well-being of residents and supports climate action by reducing vehicle emissions. The council is also committed to enhancing and developing Fingal’s inherent sense of place, identity, and character, ensuring that individual communities remain distinctive and improving the quality of life for residents. The council is also committed to ensuring that these improvements to local neighbourhoods are inclusive and cater to all abilities, genders, and age groups including children, older people, and people with a range of disabilities.
Active Travel Plan Timeline
The Active Travel Plan for Balrothery will be developed through 4 stages. At each stage, the community will be able to feed into the developing plan. Fingal County Council feels it is important to develop a plan with the input, knowledge and information provided by the Balrothery Community, to ensure that it is appropriate to the particular needs of residents, business owners, and visitors in the village.
Current Stage: Stage 2: Draft Active Travel Plan
07 August 2025 - Project Update
The team have been busy finalising the Active Travel Plan for Balrothery, incorporating feedback on the proposals from the community and Councillors. The Plan is now being sent to relevant statutory bodies for their review and will be published here when their feedback is received.
A high-level overview updated Active Travel Plan is shown in the figures below (which show the planned improvements to the local active travel network and facilities and planned changes to the local road layout). The following changes have been made as a result of your feedback on the previous proposal:
- We are exploring the direction of the one-way system in the village centre to improve and optimise circulation and help create a place that feels safer to walk in.
- We are proposing retaining 2-way "access only" to Coach Road, (north of the village centre / past the primary school). The northern junction to the R132 is proposed to be made exit only (with junction improvements to the R132, ie sightlines, stop line position, speed reduction measures to the R132, etc. for safer egress) to help reduce movement conflicts and traffic flows past the school.
- We are reviewing parking issues within the village centre and exploring how parking management can be improved to better serve the needs of local residents, businesses and visitors.
- In addition to lower speed limits, we are exploring parking options along the R132 to help divert long stay parking from the village centre. This would include potential new pedestrian connections to the R132 (via Tudor Hamlet and The Coachyard)
- We are exploring additional traffic calming measures at the edge of the village on approach to Knightswood to ensure traffic is slowed down when entering the village from all directions.
- We have removed a private access path previously proposed as part of the walking network, as there are land ownership and planning considerations.
The team are now working up more developed designs as we look to move towards the implementation of the first stage of the Plan and submit a request for funding. These are to include upgrades to the walking, cycling and wheeling networks to address the major issues raised to the team by you, the residents, the wider public and the relevant stakeholders which are incorporated in the Plan. The designs will address multiple issues across multiple parts of the village to deliver a coordinated package of improvements which make active travel feel safer, easier and more accessible for everyone.
Once these designs are progressed through the preliminary design stage, we will be engaging with you again for your feedback on the specifics of each intervention. As can be seen from the updated timeline shown above, this is scheduled to happen in the Autumn.
Click here to view the Balrothery Active Travel Plan Active Travel Network
Click here to view the Balrothery Active Travel Plan Vehicle Movement Network
28 November 2024 - Public consultation update
The presentation and accompanying information on the draft Balrothery Active Travel Plan provided at the consultation event at Balrothery Heritage Centre on 20 November 2024 is now available for you to view here.
Within the presentation you will find an update on our key findings to date and the proposed measures to support active travel in the village.
In addition, we've added a new survey for you to give us your feedback on the draft plan after you've read the proposals (available here). This will be used to help us review and refine proposals. This survey will be available until 10 January 2025.
Previous Stage: Stage 1 - Understanding Balrothery - What you've told us so far
31 July 2024
Newsletter
Please click here to view our latest updates in our newsletter.
Engagement Report
Following your feedback through the interactive activities on this website, and public open forum discussions in Balrothery Heritage Centre on 20 February 2024, an Engagement Summary Report has been prepared.
Please click here to view this report.
Online Survey
Please see below link to online survey for you to give us your feedback on the information that we have gathered to date. This will allow us to see if we are hearing the people of Balrothery and interpreting your information in the right way.
Please note that all of the information will be used to inform publicly available reports. We will not be collecting personal information. Please do not provide any personal information.
Previous Stage: Stage 1 - Reviewing Feedback
The project team built a detailed understanding of active movement around Balrothery. They did this through mapping and travel survey data, but they also gathered the community's experience and opinions on:
- the current way that people travel around Balrothery and the surrounding areas;
- the existing active travel infrastructure;
- the destinations people are travelling to and from to meet their daily needs; and
- the barriers that different people in Balrothery experience to travelling more actively.
- opinions on opportunities to enhance existing linkages, create new routes and create new public spaces.
The community gave their feedback in this first stage in two ways.
- Gave feedback through the interactive activities on this website.
- Gave feedback in person at our information session held from 3pm-8pm on 20 February 2024 in the Balrothery Heritage Centre.
Contact
This project is being led by The Active Travel Unit of Fingal County Council and supported by the international consultants Ramboll. The project team will email registered community groups to update them on the project's progress. If you would like to be emailed with updates about this project or have any questions about the project, then please get in contact by emailing: [email protected]
Fingal County Council is being supported by the international consultants Ramboll to develop an active travel plan for Balrothery. Ramboll is a foundation-owned consultancy of over 17,000 experts worldwide whose ethos is to partner with our clients and collaborators to drive sustainable change. Ramboll’s experts create memorable and lasting places that embed long-term sustainability and generate value for future generations.
