After the announcement of 8 million euro in funding recently for the Kilkenny Greenway, the next steps are now being taken to actually create it.
When complete, the Greenway, will span a distance of 24 kilometres from Ferrybank through other areas of South Kilkenny and into Wexford.
It’s also planned to link the existing Waterford Greenway to it when it’s ready.
However, the next step now is acquiring use of the land – which was formerly a railway line – from CIÉ.
At the Piltown Municipal District meeting a suggestion was put forward that Kilkenny might ask CIÉ to abandon the line, in which case the council would take complete ownership of it.
This would be instead of agreeing a 20-year lease.
But councillors expressed some reservations that the abandonment process might delay the project more than a lease would.
It was eventually agreed that rather than making a decision there and then, they would ask the council for the pros and cons of both options and decide in the coming weeks.
The estimated time it would take to hand the land over entirely would be about 5 months.
