Murlough Nature Reserve entry is facing restrictions

Murlough Nature Reserve entry is facing restrictions

24 June 2015

ACCESS to parts of the Murlough Nature Reserve is to be restricted by the National Trust.

The Trust is to abandon a pass system which allows residents of the greater Dundrum area to drive onto the Reserve’s more secluded north point.

This will mean access to the north point for motorists wanting to use the large car park will only permitted at certain times. 

Under the present system key fobs give local residents the opportunity to drive through an automatic gate to the car park. The scheme is primarily used by local pensioners making it easier for them to access the beach and picturesque reserve rather than walking almost a mile from the nearest car park.

The key fob system is an extension of an arrangement put in place when the National Trust bought 700 acres of the 6,000 year-old dunes from Lord Downshire in the mid 1960s. Lord Downshire had close links to Dundrum village and decreed residents should continue to have unfettered access to the area after the National Trust took over.

This continued until 2004 when a group of travellers spent some time on the north point, prompting the National Trust to lock the main gate which leads to the area. Villagers who regularly drove up to the north point car park were given keys to the gate which were replaced by key fobs when the gate was automised several years ago.

To get a key fob local people had to take out National Trust membership and pay a £15 fee.

However, in a letter to the fob holders last week the Trust’s South Down general manager, Jonathan Clarke, announced a review of the fob system.

Mr Clarke said it is important the Trust balances the primary aim of conservation with appropriate access for members and visitors.

“The current fob system was established with good intentions and it worked well initially however the criteria were not particularly well defined,” he said. “Furthermore the technology is at the limit of its capacity with the result that there is almost no flexibility to issue a fob even to a new staff member.”

He also claimed the Trust is introducing a ‘technological change programme’ with which the fob system is incompatible.

“In short the current system is at the end of its life and doing nothing is simply not an option,” said Mr. Clarke.

Instead of the fob system the gate will open between 8.30am and 4.30pm but there will no access to cars outside these times. Pedestrians will still be able to walk into the reserve at any time.

There has been an angry response from several local fob holders, some of whom have threatened to cancel their National Trust membership.

“This will hit the pensioners, without a doubt,” said one woman. “Many elderly people walk early in the morning and many others walk in the evening. Parking on the north point means they can walk on the beach or in the reserve without having to walk almost a mile from the Keel Point car park.

“None of us believe the excuse that technology is to blame. We just think they don’t want people up here and this is their way of stopping us,’ she added.

Several other regular walkers said they would be giving up her National Trust membership in protest if the fobs are withdrawn.