Fears park-and-ride may be used for gondola ride

Fears park-and-ride may be used for gondola ride

26 February 2025

CONCERN has been expressed that a government-funded active travel scheme, which features a planned park-and-ride in Newcastle, will be used to ferry passengers to the controversial gondola ride proposed for the Mournes.

The claim was made last week by a local councillor during a meeting of Newry, Mourne and Down Council’s Sustainability and Environment Committee.

Members were informed the local authority has until this Friday to formulate its response to the Department for Infrastructure’s active travel delivery plan for the province over the next decade.

Mournes Alliance councillor Jill Truesdale has expressed concern over the proposal for a park and ride at the Castlewellan Road in the resort as part of the government scheme.

She suggested the plan will “shore-horn” a park and ride scheme into the resort as such a facility has been touted as a key plank of required infrastructure improvements to ferry passengers to the gondola’s proposed base station in Donard Park.

Cllr Truesdale said councillors have been told that the gondola scheme — which is at the heart of the £44m Mourne Gateway Project —  hinges on a park-and-ride facility to alleviate Newcastle’s “desperately apparent traffic congestion and parking issues”.

She continued: “A park-and-ride design or build does not fall under the funding from the Belfast Region City Deal for the scheme. Therefore the cost would be passed to the ratepayer.”

Cllr Truesdale said costs over and above the £30m City Deal funding would be funded by ratepayers and was agreed by all political parties except Alliance.

“The council paper discussed last week made it clear that active travel by its definition is walking, cycling, scooting or wheeling, rather than driving,”she said.

“It’s often used for short journeys, like walking to the shops or cycling to work. However, the council’s active travel masterplan published in 2019, which is an excellent document, does not mention a park and ride for Newcastle, but does for other towns.”

Cllr Truesdale said the document recognised that certain areas in the resort were affected by traffic congestion and that proposed improvements in several locations, including making the Shimna and Bryansford roads two-way and pedestrianising Main Street, “made total sense”.

She went on: “Why does this new proposal put in a park-and-ride for Newcastle when other towns were mentioned in 2019 for these and Newcastle wasn’t?”

Cllr Truesdale claimed that the “gondola cheerleaders” from all other political parties and the local authority are hoping the DfI will take on a very loose interpretation of active travel in order to facilitate a much-rejected tourist project.

She added: “There is absolutely no evidence of a park-and-ride being useful to alleviate Newcastle traffic congestion which will exponentially increase with added visitor numbers to a gondola.”

During last week’s meeting, Cllr Helena Young asked council officials to provide information on the use of the temporary park-and-ride facilities in the resort over the past five years during council-run events, except last September’s Amgen Irish Open at Royal County Down.

She was informed there is no such data.

Cllr Young said people in Northern Ireland did not use park-and-ride facilities, other than to get to city centres, suggesting that in Newcastle they will walk.

“In Newcastle, we already have Translink busy buses running through the tourist season, as well as private businesses servicing mountain hikers all year round. Have these organisations been surveyed how the active travel scheme will impact on them?” she asked.