Wicklow County Council Throwing Money Off A Cliff…?

Talk about deer…

atest press release from Friends Of The Cliff Walk, issued on Wednesday, July 8th 2026…

Wicklow County Council has spent over €116,000 erecting barriers to prevent people using the Bray to Greystones Cliff Walk.

The money has included the cost of putting up and repairing barriers along the habitually used right of way, as well as the cost of signs, plus machinery and the wages of those involved. Most of the work has been done by contractors retained by the Council but some has been done by Council staff.

Despite the barriers, people continue to use the walk, though in numbers greatly reduced from the pre-closure figures which were in excess of 300,000 a year.

Details of the spending on barriers, from May 2021 to June 2026, was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Costs related to what is described as ‘Greystones Maintenance’, the precise meaning of which is not stated in the information supplied, amounted to €79,850 and included
machinery hire, materials, wages and ‘energy costs’. This €79,850 is the largest category of spending.

Problems with the Walk arose in February 2021 when part of the soft clay cliff above the Greystones North Beach collapsed. A further collapse occurred in April 2021. In May that year, Richard Nolan Civil Engineering was paid a total of €13,653 for putting up barriers relating to these slippages.

In October 2022, a portion of rock face near the Bray start of the Walk collapsed.

Following this, the same firm was paid €5,352 relating to barrier erection, which is assumed to relate in part, if not wholly, to the large metal barrier in Bray.

In November 2023, there were three further payments relating to barriers and barrier repairs, amounting to just under €6,000. In 2024, four payments under the same heading totalled €4,850. Two payments in 2026 amounted to €2,551.

Signage costs over the same period totalled just over €4,000.

The €116,000 spent trying to stop local people and visitors using the Cliff Walk, and contributing significantly to the local economy, contrasts with the €145,000 spent by the Council on improvements to Burnaby Park in Greystones, including a boules court, little used to date, and chess tables, which are almost never used.

As local businesses have confirmed, the army of Cliff walkers were a vital income source for cafes and restaurants.

A spokesman for Friends of the Cliff Walk commented, “Until our group became active in September 2024 and began restoring and maintaining the Cliff Walk, and campaigning for its official reopening, Wicklow County Council had done virtually nothing proactively to actually deal with the issues that prompted their closure of the Walk.

“Information the Council supplied recently to the Office of the Ombudsman (in response to our complaint alleging maladministration by the Council) asserts that in March 2024 the Council initiated a Compulsory Purchase Order process to acquire land on the Greystones side to move the path inland. However, that process, to the extent that it was in fact pursued, was abandoned in September 2024 without, apparently, councillors being informed.

“This spring, the Council said it had engaged anew with landowners and would use CPO legislation if voluntary agreement could not be reached – an admission of time lost, the Council’s own policy in relation to maintaining and enhancing the Cliff Walk not being upheld, and the public interest in this regard not being defended.

“That’s close enough to a definition of maladministration.”

You can find out more about recent Cliff Walk shenanigans here, explore its history here, and check out Friends of The Cliff Walk here.