Traffic reduction scheme means climate change emissions rise, claims Kimmins: Sinn Fein minister seeks to justify putting red light on Lagan pedestrian bridge while she appeals stalled A5 road rebuild
A traffic reduction footbridge would cause environmentally harmful emissions to rise, the Infrastructure Minister has claimed, as she sought to justify blocking it until her attempt to restart the controversial A5 road-building project is dealt with.
A £1.7bn project to overhaul the A5 was blocked by a court on environmental grounds, a judge concluding that massively widening a road from Londonderry to the border at Co Monaghan goes against Stormont’s climate change targets.
Ms Kimmins is challenging that verdict, but has placed three construction projects on hold until her appeal is heard – including plans for a pedestrian and cycle bridge over the River Lagan in Belfast.
Her red light incensed city politicians; they pointed out that the bridge is intended to reduce traffic, while reinforcing that around half of the money to pay for it comes from the Belfast City Region Deal, which is a time-limited fund.
Now the minister has insisted that in fact, the footbridge will cause “a net increase in carbon emissions”, something she said is true of “almost every project involving major construction”.
In a letter to Belfast Council seen by the News Letter, she states: “Steel and concrete results in more carbon whether it’s used to drive on or walk on.”
Maintaining that projects like the bridge are “at the core” of her department’s plans for the transport network and she is “fully committed to its delivery”, she also stated that the Climate Change Act “does not distinguish between different uses” of major construction schemes – so, according to her argument, courts would see the 54-mile A5 road project and the footbridge over the Lagan in the same light.
She added that work is continuing to “refine tender documentation, update the design, and [carry out] other preparatory elements” on the pedestrian and cycle bridge.
The council is due to discuss her position tomorrow. Back in March, the row saw a Green Party councillor brand the Department for Infrastructure “unaccountable and highly dysfunctional for years” over the issue.
Said an irate Bryan Smith at the time: “It’s not about climate versus roads, this is department versus competency.
“Numerous ministers have gone into the department with the best of intentions, but it’s a meat-grinder.
“As Greens, from where we are looking at it, it seems like a handful of civil servants are calling the shots, and that’s to the detriment of people across Northern Ireland.”
And an official on the city authority said he’d already told the department its decision to put the bridge on hold “makes no sense” and leaves the council “watching construction inflation drag this further and further away from us”.
Costed at £23m to £28m, the Lagan Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge is to be a major addition to the south of Belfast close to the city centre. It’s designed to link Ormeau Embankment with the former site of the capital’s old gasworks, now offices and commercial development.
It’s one of three large constructions totalling £190m that Ms Kimmins froze pending the outcome of her A5 appeal.
The others are a £36m bypass at Enniskillen, and plans to rework junctions along 15 miles of the A1 dual carriageway between Hillsborough and Loughbrickland. Priced between £120m and £130m and repeatedly delayed, the A1 scheme has already been on the cards for 20 years.