Dublin City Council has won an appeal over the quashing of the Sandymount cycleway project, which was first proposed in August 2020.
The installation of a cycle path on Strand Road in the south Dublin suburb can go ahead, following the council’s successful appeal of a High Court judgment that stopped its implementation.
The Court of Appeal has found the High Court, in quashing the scheme, had erred in finding that it was not to be introduced on a temporary basis and in finding that an environmental-impact assessment or appropriate assessment should first have been carried out.
The three-judge court also found the High Court was wrong to hold there were fundamental flaws in the screening for the environmental assessments and also wrong to hold that planning permission was required for the scheme.
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However, the appeal court found the council had breached its “duty of candour” in not disclosing to the High Court when certain decisions in relation to the project were made, but it accepted that the breach was inadvertent and the relevant official has apologised to the court.
“We have concluded, therefore, that the council must succeed in its appeal,” the court said. It also dismissed a cross appeal by the Independent councillor Mannix Flynn.
Cllr Flynn and a local resident, Peter Carvill of the Serpentine Avenue, Tritonville and Claremont Roads group, took the High Court challenge against the council’s plans to conduct a trial of the path for six months from March 2021.
Mr Justice Charles Meenan ruled in July 2021 that the proposed cycleway must be subject to an environmental-impact assessment and, therefore, must go through the planning process.
He made a finding that the cycleway would not, in fact, be temporary, as the council had submitted.
The Strand Road plan would have turned what is currently a two-way vehicular stretch of road along the coast into a single outbound lane with the other lane used as a two-way cycle track.
The council appealed the High Court ruling, with the Court of Appeal now finding in the council’s favour.
In a statement after the hearing the council said it was “happy with the outcome and will now review the judgment in full before informing the public in due course of the next steps”.
The Serpentine Avenue, Tritonville and Claremont Roads group in a statement urged the council to “have a forthright and open consultation with the local community before proceeding with any road closures” and said: “Our only concern when pursuing this action was the dangerous and destructive effect of diverting high volumes of traffic through our small village streets.”
Mr Flynn said he hoped lessons would be learned. “I’m very proud of standing up and I’m very proud of the community. I hope now that things can be done with this experience in a better way.”
Speaking afterwards, Cllr Flynn said the local community wanted a cycle path but not where the council “decided to shove it” because that would send traffic into the Sandymount village area.
He disagreed that the council now has “free rein to do what they want” thanks to the court decision, because, he said, other challenges can be mounted.
“You can also block roads, you can do all sorts of situations, you can be very active as a community,” he said. The community should be included in the process and not have something “shoved down their throats”.
The Green Party councillor Hazel Chu, who also attended the Court of Appeal for the judgment, welcomed the decision. She said the case was about sustainable transport around the city and the country.
In the past couple of years since this case was in court, there had been “a chilling effect” on active travel across the city and country, she said. “I am hoping now that will be lifted and that there is now going to be ambition when it comes to various projects.”
