Rural Roads & Tourism Infrastructure Project

ICBAN Roads and Transportation Projects

ICBAN was and is active on the 'Roads' issue on two fronts.

1 The ICBAN Rural Roads Improvement Project
2 Spatial considerations for the future of transportation infrastructure in the wider ICBAN region

The ICBAN Rural Roads Improvement Project

ICBAN Rural Roads Development Programme; this project focused on two areas of investment. Small scale improvement to minor roads either on or close to the border, or of cross border importance and secondly creating improved tourism roads based infrastructure. The project was devised by ICBAN in partnership with the ICBAN County Councils and Department of Regional Development (DRD) Roads Service in N.Ireland (Western and Southern Division).

To date, three programmes of action have been prepared and delivered. Funding was sought and generously provided by the EU through the PEACE II Programme (4,097,751 euros) and the third programme has been funded by the INTERREG IIIA Programme under the infrastructure measure (4,000,000 euros). In addition, match funding has been provided by the County Councils and the DRD.

These monies have enabled road improvements to have been carried out in some of the most disadvantaged rural areas of the border region in
37 road improvement schemes and 7 tourism infrastructure projects such as picnic sites.

Spatial considerations for the future of transportation infrastructure in the wider ICBAN region

The second area of ICBAN activity under the roads topic, seeks to provide evidence of the need for a much improved main road infrastructure through lobbying and partnership with central government.

ICBAN prepared a Transportation Proposals Paper to provide evidence of need and opportunity re. roads infrastructure in the region. This was discussed with the Dept. of Regional Development (DRD) and DRD Roads Service NI, Regional Development NI, the National Roads Authority and the Dept. of Environment Local Government and Heritage ROI. The research will form the basis for further cross border development planning.

ICBAN seek to identify and prove a number of key issues for the future sustainable development of the ICBAN region which require cross border policy and planning to be integrated within the two relevant spatial planning programmes and in this case with a focus on transportation infrastructure.

It will define and make a robust case for the adoption and major improvement of two routes as strategic cross border transportation corridors within the context of a cross border framework for the National Spatial Strategy and Regional Development Strategy. The case will take account of other key spatial development priorities for the region such as regional hubs and  gateway classifications and focus in on particular rural industry types and dependencies in the rural west.

Any resulting major infrastructure improvement is likely to have a time scale to delivery of more than ten years.