Majority of 900 members in opposition to attraction

Majority of 900 members in opposition to attraction

3 May 2023

POLITICIANS have been asked to halt further public expenditure on the controversial £44m Mournes Gateway project.

The appeal in the run-up to next month’s election to appoint Newry, Mourne and Down Council’s new 41 members has been issued by the Mourne Gateway Information Group (MGIG).

Launched just a few weeks ago, it already has 900 members, the overwhelming majority of whom are opposed to what will be one of the biggest tourism projects ever proposed for the island of Ireland.

Membership of the group includes expert voices in environmental protection and management, environmental design and best practice in governmental procedure.

The group was established with no agreed agenda or viewpoint, with its sole function to share information and discuss the multi-million pound proposal.

The Gateway project features a cable car ride into the heart of the mountains and could open in 2029 with suggestions that if the flagship tourism project gets the green light, it could attract 365,000 visitors annually after five years in business, generating just over £5m in revenue.

Billed as a “world class tourism attraction”, the project is being funded by the Belfast City Region Deal and Newry, Mourne and Down Council.

The City Deal initiative has committed £30m to the cost, with the district’s ratepayers funding the remaining £14m.

The cable car would transport visitors from a base station in Donard Park up over trees in Donard Forest to a major new interpretative centre which will be built at Thomas’s Quarry which closed six years ago.

Those behind the scheme — which is also the largest ever capital investment project proposed for the district — say it has been designed to position the area as one of the province’s premier tourism districts and create 33 new jobs.

Council officials say there is a lot of work to do over the next few years to get to the stage where they want to be on site in Donard Park and in the disused quarry on Thomas’s mountain “with a lot of detail to be discussed and considerations to be made over the next two years”.

It is hoped to secure planning approval in 2026 and to also start construction in mid-2026 with a completion date in early 2029, with the tourism project fully operational by the middle of the year.

The MGIG said its members were undecided about the £44m tourism project before an information event in the resort in March when full details of the project and concept designs were made public.

Questions

Many members attended the event and have revealed that while local authority representatives in attendance were “quite forthcoming” on some details, the information they were provided with “raised more questions than answers”.

Geoff Ingram, MGIG’s Facebook page administrator, said a majority vote of its members gave voice to the view that the gondola should not go ahead.

“Serious concerns about the gondola project have been put forward by organisations such as the National Trust and Mountaineering Ireland as well as many individuals,” he said. “ No clear and realistic case for the gondola has been put forward by its proponents. 

“Some of our major concerns are on financial and environmental aspects, the impact on Newcastle traffic and parking, health and social impacts and addressing the council’s own goals for addressing the climate change crisis.”

Mr Ingram said many of the group’s members say that the gondola ride to the proposed visitors` centre at the former quarry is not what people need or want. He said ratepayers, especially Newcastle residents, have not been properly consulted on this and alternative plans. 

He continued: “We have learned through a Freedom of Information request that the local council has already spent more than £300,000 on initial consultant work to qualify for a £30m City Deal grant. 

“And that the council has also approved spending £2m of ratepayers’ money in this financial year’s capital programme for the gondola project, with construction costs rising through inflation.”

Mr Ingram said group members posed many questions, both verbally and in writing to the council at the recent information the meeting.

“They assured us that they would research and reply to these and stay engaged with the group. So far, we have heard nothing from them,” he said.

Mr Ingram confirmed the result of the recent Facebook page discussion on the Mournes Gateway project revealed 543 people against the proposed flagship tourism project and 152 in favour, a percentage difference of 56 per cent.

Members of the Facebook group also point to plans for a funicular railway from Donard Park to the Granite Trail and the quarry in 1996 which came to nothing, as did a plan in 2012 for a gondola to Drinnahilly.

It says many unforeseen challenges in the construction and operation of the Thomas’s Mountain gondola and visitors` centre in such a location is expected, given its exposure to the fierce winds and weather that swirl down around the Mournes, snapping or uprooting fully grown trees.