Cairn Wood repair: Council in dark on Belfast road closure that starts in two weeks
A local council is in the dark over the closure of a busy route to Belfast that’s to shut in a fortnight to to fix a beauty spot wood’s storm damage.
As the News Letter revealed yesterday, Cairn Wood in hills to the east of Belfast is to have major repair work over the next few weeks after it was battered by Storm Eowyn in January.
Part of that includes closing Craigantlet Road, which runs past the wood, in both directions – something that’s being done so an agency of the Department of Agriculture, the Enviornment and Rural Affairs (Daera) can work on trees in the area.
It’s a busy route that joins Belfast with Bangor, Holywood, Dundonald and Newtownards. For Bangor’s 65,000 residents, it’s essentially one of two roads to the capital city – and since the new year, it’s seen a lot more traffic than usual due to regular closures of the A2 dual carriageway’s Sydenham Bypass for roadworks.
Craigantlet Road is to close on March 10, Daera has confirmed, and there’s no guarantee the Sydenham bypass will have reopened by then.
But the area council, which manages part of Cairn Wood and is to send its own repair team in, says it’s completely in the dark about plans to shut off the road in a fortnight’s time.
Ards and North Down Council looks after the wood’s car park, and also handles upkeep of the beauty spot’s trails that were expensively upgraded a few years ago.
The council is deploying its own workmen into Cairn Wood over the next weeks, alongside Daera’s team – and a spokeswoman for the local authority told the News Letter: “We are unaware of any requests to close the road.”
The spokeswoman also disagreed with Daera’s assessment of when the site will be accessible to the public.
Daera claimed that Cairn Wood will gradually reopen over the next two to three weeks, but the council insists it’ll take more than twice that long to be fully up and running.
"We aim to partially open the lower woodland trail and car park by mid-March, and the remaining areas by the end of April,” said the spokeswoman.
The News Letter contacted Daera asking why the council appears to have been kept in the dark, but the Stormont body was unable to issue a response.
The council spokeswoman also revealed why Cairn Wood is only being fixed now, more than a month after Storm Eowyn ripped through Northern Ireland.
The wood has been shut ever since the storm hit on January 24 – so if the estimated full reopening time of mid-April is correct, it will have been out of action for the bulk of three months.
According to the spokeswoman, the council prioritised fixing storm damage to its essential services such as cemeteries, as well as areas that posed high risks to the public.
Since the wood’s extensive damage would take some time to repair, yet it’s at a remote location and can be easily closed down, it was designated a low priority.
“[After the storm] surveys including drone assessments were completed, allowing our team to plan the work for our staff and contractors,” said the spokeswoman.