Although the former landfill site hosts a free 5km parkrun every Saturday morning along with some matches and BMX bike activity, the park is closed to the public for the rest of the week except for people going there to recycle materials.
Once it does open next year, pedestrian access will be from a new pathway from Douglas that runs parallel to the South Ring Road and via Half-Moon lane to the South Douglas Road while cars will enter as usual from the South Link Road.
As highlighted by a recent parkrun however, it only takes a modest number of people to use the park at the same time to create problems. There is a limited amount of car spaces in the park and there will need to be additional parking outside the park so that people can access it.
The image above shows the initial plan for the park which includes access from the west by the Black Ash Park & Ride facility. It seems an obvious place to use for parking but the Office of Public Works have ruled out a culvert under the South Link Road on Health and Safety grounds.
It just seems a bit crazy that the Black Ash Park & Ride facility is located about 300m away with a capacity for 940 cars and it can't be used. The thing is that there is already a tunnel underneath the South Link Road in the form of a bridge over the Tramore River.
I'd suspect that once it does open, parking and access is going to continue to be a major issue until they get parking at the Black Ash facility resolved. It's probably likely that at some big events, people will just park in the Black Ash anyway and try to get across the South Link themselves which is a lot more dangerous than an alternative underneath.
More about the opening in an article from Eoin English in the Irish Examiner.
1 comment:
Shame none of the internal zones will be done by then.
It'll still be a manky barren field with a path around it.
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