Bray Harbour’s Turn To Go Electric

With Greystones harbour having tackled its own crumbling demise with a brand, spanking new marina that has divided de townsfolk somewhat, Bray seems to be taking more of a community approach to giving their waterfront amenity a new lick of paint.

Bray Municipal District councillors and officials joined forces with the Bray Harbour Action Group in March 2017 to see how they could best maximize the potential of Bray Harbour.

And now, it seems, they have come up with a cunning plan. And an illustration [above] to go with that plan.

Here’s yesterday’s statement from BHAG after Bray Municipal District agreed that plan…

At its meeting on 10th April 2018 Bray Municipal District agreed a plan and to provide funding for the rejuvenation of Bray Harbour on foot of a proposal made by The Bray Harbour Joint Development Committee.

The proposal involves providing protection of the harbour from East/Northeast by restoring the south harbour wall to approximately where it was before the collapse of the pier end and Lighthouse in 1957, training and deepening the river to provide a deep water channel navigable at all stages of the tide and restoring the overall depth of the harbour to 3 hours either side of HW.

This will enable the provision of a deep water berth for visiting coastal cruise ships carrying up to 200 passengers , deep water pontoons in the river channel for local harbour users, visitors and marine leisure commercial providers. It will also provide for an increased number of safe revenue generating moorings. The provision of pontoons will mean that local people and visitors wishing to take to the water will now have easy inexpensive access to marine leisure activities at all stages of the tide.

This development, especially the pontoons, will give impetus to significant opportunities in the growing marine leisure commercial activity generating both increased spend and job numbers in the local economy. For existing harbour users it will mean safe moorings navigable for longer and the possibility of being able to use boats all year.
There are very significant economic benefits to the local economy in terms of visitor spend, direct earnings from visitor mooring fees and increase in number of moorings available for letting.
The proposal also envisages the creation of an urban space in the southwestern corner of the harbour. This has the benefit of not only creating additional amenity for local people and visitors but also provides a cost effective environmentally friendly means of dealing with the surplus sand to be removed from the harbour floor.

The Bray Harbour Joint Development Committee is made up of members of the Bray Harbour Action Group (representing harbour users) and four representatives from Wicklow County Council. The committee acknowledges the support of Wicklow Chief executive, Councillors and officials in achieving this positive outcome for Bray.

The likely cost of the project is estimated at circa €1million. This development will not only transform the harbour area but it also has the potential to make Bray an attractive Harbour Town providing additional amenities for local people and attracting visitors by land and sea.

You can find out more about the Bray Harbour Action Group on their Facebook page here, or on their blog here. The small aerial illustration above is by Steven McGarr, highlighting the silting problem in Bray’s current harbour.