Campaign Launched For Great Big Greystones Park

Greystones Linear Park Proposal NOV18

e’ve been promised a great big park before, of course, with the marina developers teasing us back in November 2018 with fantastical images of what they were planning to gift the town.

What they eventually delivered was far from fantastical – especially when it came to their dog-eared, waterlogged pooch park.

And now a new campaign has been launched for a Greystones Park that might actually fit 26,000 locals and their mutts inside, Councillor Mark Barry being the man with the plan.

Which goes a little something like this…

Greystones lacks the green infrastructure that a town of its size and ambition deserves. Houses keep going up, but appropriate infrastructure isn’t following. This isn’t just about being connected to the grid, or having proper roads – this is also about making sure that our town remains a pleasant place for kids to grow up, and adults to relax, and elders to retire to. A place that prioritises clean air, connection to nature, preservation of local biodiversity, and space for leisure.

A town park of this scale would change daily life in Greystones in ways that are immediate and lasting.

It would give children somewhere to play, freely and safely, away from roads and screens. I would give sports clubs room to grow, to train and o welcome new members. It would give older residents somewhere calm and green to spend time, to walk at their own pace, to sit in the open air and remain part of community life. It would give every family in the town, somewhere to walk, to meet and to sit outside together, regardless of income or mobility,

Large green spaces with mature trees clean the air, absorb rainfall, reduce urban heat and support biodiversity in ways that extend far beyond the park’s boundaries. They create the conditions for complex ecosystems to thrive, benefiting surrounding farmland, hedgerows and garden patches across the town and beyond.

A park of this kind also creates space for the kinds of community events that bring us all together, and strengthen the social fabric of a town: markets, music, club gatherings, informal moments of connection that aren’t plan, but just happen when there is a common space for people to share. These are the spaces, and the moments, that add to a place’s intrinsic quality and make it somewhere people aspire to live.

Access to green space shouldn’t be a luxury. Research clearly shows the benefits of time spent outdoors: it supports mental health by reducing stress and improves physical well being across age groups. For a growing town under increasing pressure, a park like this is essential infrastructure for community life, not just leisure.

The general consensus is that Wicklow County Council, having recently bought us a new forest to play in, are unlikely to cough up the millions necessary to buy a chunk or indeed of all the long-closed Charlesland Golf Club, or even the IDA land by the Shoreline roundabout as the Hollywood dream of a €350 film studio fades evermore to black. We are their spoilt red-haired stepson, after all.

That the Evans – the family behind the Charlesland Golf Club – have been trying to get rezoning for houses on their 127 acres suggests one of the most hopeful scenarios is that a large park is incorporated into any housing plans there, with someone like Codling Wind Park coughing up the necessary loot. Given that a major investment in local infrastructure is all part of any planning permission granted for their offshore wind farm.

The club house went to market earlier this year for €1.7m, and is now sale agreed. So, there may be changes ahead.

You can add your name to the campaign for A Park For Greystones here, and find out more about Mark’s cunning plan here.