Navan Cycling Initiative Press release: Pathfinder Navan to Trim Cycle Scheme

Navan Cycling Initiative is very concerned with recent reports that the Pathfinder Navan to Trim Cycle Scheme has not been allocated funding, after several years of design and planning. This is a very worrying development on a project which has undergone a lot of work to date and had been ‘shovel ready’.

The Pathfinder Navan to Trim Cycle Scheme is a very exciting and high-profile project which was due to start construction in Winter 2024 after undergoing a public consultation, preliminary and detailed design stages, and tender preparation, only for the project to not be supplied with the required funding from the Department of Transport, according to Meath County Council.

The Pathfinder Programme, first published in 2022 by the Department of Transport, was designed to encourage more active travel and play a key part in the implementation of the National Sustainable Mobility Policy and in the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 in the transport sector. This Navan to Trim scheme would also be a key infrastructural project for the region in connecting two major greenways in Navan with Trim and on to the Royal Canal Greenway. And with plans for a new state-of-the-art visitor centre at Trim Castle, the scheme would also provide a significant tourism boost to the area and connect two of Meath’s largest towns.

It is inexplicable that after initially being selected for this programme in 2022, developing the route and design, and going through the consultation stages, that it will now just not be funded. The scheme attracted a lot of interest from the general public and local media, and received the full support of elected officials and local groups. How much time, resources and money have Meath County Council put into this project while other schemes have been delayed?

Navan Cycling Initiative call on the Department of Transport to reverse this decision and to provide the required funding for this ‘shovel ready’ scheme – as was outlined and agreed in the Pathfinder Programme. In that programme, this scheme was meant to be an exemplar inter–urban route that could be replicated elsewhere throughout the country. We call on the Department of Transport to fulfil that agreement. We call on our elected officials to support this scheme and to seek clarification on why this funding was not provided, and to demand the Department of Transport to fully fund this and other active projects as a matter of urgency.