Chair Lift on Bray Head

Aggie Plod

Does anyone else think it would be amazing to get a new chair lift for Bray Head? The old one looks like it must have been a great tourist attraction with the spectacular view of the coast .It would offer something unusual to liven up a Sunday afternoon stroll.

foxy06

Would be a fantastic idea but probably won't happen in our lifetime!

The Real B-man

Never Happen IMO Bray has nothing going for it the Way it Did 50+ Years ago people used to come from all over to Holiday! theres not much attraction nowadays tbh.

builditwell

The old lift did what it was supposed to do, which is to take eager tourists up the well looked after Bray head and surrounding hills to enjoy the view, have a ramble and visit the crows nest which was a very popular venue for live music.

Nowdays it would last about 5 minutes before its either vandalised or stolen. The only people that would use it are the underage drinkers who cant carry a €16 box of beer up the hill to then smash it all over the place and light fires etc etc. During a clean up last year I collected 19 used needles and approx fifty somthing in total with rest of group. Paints a nice picture doesent it !
As for local amenities there seems to be only a few interested in looking after their property and results show if you spend a bit and maintain it you reap the rewards, look at the old fun palace and the martello as examples of this with both have been really well developed over the recent years.

John Mason

They did look at re-instating it a few years ago but there was insurance problems.

my granny was just talking about this on sunday and the wonderful dances up there - alcohol free dances - they would never get away with that now

ClimateGirl

Insurance ruins everything... I've also had the same thought that it would be a fantastic attraction to re-instate the chair lift. I also think Bray sea front should embrace it's victorian heritage more with some sort of annual victorian summer festival - it would be so much more of an international tourist draw than the typical summer fest (bit like Wexford's Opera Festival)...

Alun

ClimateGirl wrote: »

Insurance ruins everything... I've also had the same thought that it would be a fantastic attraction to re-instate the chair lift. I also think Bray sea front should embrace it's victorian heritage more with some sort of annual victorian summer festival - it would be so much more of an international tourist draw than the typical summer fest (bit like Wexford's Opera Festival)...

+1000 but that would need Bray Town Council to spend more time actually doing something and less time bickering amongst themselves and washing their dirty linen in the Wicklow Times, and I don't see that happening very soon

waves

The council doesn't run Bray Summerfest - there is a voluntary committee that does.

Feel free to join and help out as we're always looking for help and suggestions as to how we can improve it.

Btw, I agree with the Victorian Heritage comment..... if they got rid of those silly modern lights and replaced them with some old style wrought iron ones, and replaced all the old seats, that would be a start.

John Mason

waves wrote: »

Btw, I agree with the Victorian Heritage comment..... if they got rid of those silly modern lights and replaced them with some old style wrought iron ones, and replaced all the old seats, that would be a start.

oh dear god, major plus one one on this

they are horrendous:mad::mad::mad:

Alun

OK don't hit me for this, but I actually quite like the new lights now that the wood has weathered grey a bit. The light they give is nice and diffuse, and doesn't shine upwards thus not contributing to light pollution. OK, they don't quite fit in with the Victorian theme, but I personally don't find them that obtrusive now (as opposed to when they first went in).

builditwell

I would agree that the choice of lighting is not great but and heres the catch: The victorian lights were far harder to maintain from a parts and cost point of view. The actual cost was if I remember correctly 2.5 new lights to a replaced/restored victorian one.So you get 5 new lights to 2 old ones. From a cost point of view the council could not justify ongoing maintenance of the older lights when a trouble free set of new ones could be installed. The seafront and promenade cannot be preserved in time there is just too much mix of old and very new now with regard to buildings and fixtures. Look at the bray head hotel, a great example of years gone by but left in bad repair in recent years. Show me the person who gave permission for the dawsons arcade to be built. Its one of the biggest eyesores on the beach and now its lying idle.

B

waves

builditwell wrote: »

Show me the person who gave permission for the dawsons arcade to be built. Its one of the biggest eyesores on the beach and now its lying idle.

B

I always wondered about that..... and Smyth's toy shop - totally out of kilter with the area in which it is and an dreadful looking building.

You could ask the councillors who were around at the time they were built.

Aggie Plod

I agree with a lot of the comments.We could make much more of Bray if there was a stronger effort to add new facilities in keeping with the existing buildings. Many towns have managed this very successfully - burying telephone & electricity cables, restricting inappropriate signage and adhering to transparent coherent planning regulations for changes to existing structures and new structures. Some of that is too costly for Bray at present but it costs nothing to deter further negative additions.
I also agree the lights were a mistake - they are not unattractive modern lights but the Promenade is not the place for them. There are problems with drug & alcohol misuse all over Ireland but can we allow ourselves to be controlled by the antisocial elements of our society- isn't that akin to bowing to a school bully?
I am completely ignorant of the process but would like to know how difficult it would be to control what amusement arcades and cafes/pubs can be built at the seafront.
Many of us are guilty of a level of apathy with regard to Council activity - maybe it is time to take more interest.

vasch_ro

Aggie Plod wrote: »

Many of us are guilty of a level of apathy with regard to Council activity - maybe it is time to take more interest.

as some one who has a small involvement in some aspects of what happens in Bray, the above comment is so true, there is massive apathy,
the council has very few resources, the councillors in Bray and all over Ireland have very little real power, they can only really influence budgets and planning. Thats it , its the unelected officials many of whom are very dedicated who have the real power.
In relation to buildings around Bray, there is not exactly a queue of companies waiting to get into Bray.
With regard to pubs people are entitled to object at the annual licensing court In Bray District Court on the main street at the end of every Sept.
With regard to the Summer fest etc, again money is a huge constraint, I feel sorry for the residents who have to listen to the music Blaring out from those tacky amusements untill 11pm every night the festivals are on, I have been in a few of those houses and it is painful.

But lets be honest its easy to type a comment from the PC or laptop, but its a lot harder to actually get involved, actually attend the public gallery of Bray Town Council, we all have demands, work(if we are lucky), families, etc
I think we need more Civic Pride in Bray in line with what the Litter Task Force are trying to achieve
The following is the Mission Statement, which has been adopted by the Task Force;

"To generate and foster public awareness and civic pride, to promote co-operation and enthusiasm amongst the people of Bray to develop and enhance the natural and built environment of the town".

Judgement Day

Sorry to drag up this thread from way back but I came across it today while searching for something entirely different. As a former resident of Bray (1961/89) I saw the town going progressively downhill as I was growing up. By the time that I escaped in 1989 I couldn't wait to get out of the place. That said, in the mid-1960s to mid 1970's it was a wonderful place for a child to grow up. The seafront was much as it had been in Victorian times with brass bands on the bandstand, the Festival of Britian Guinness Clock nearby, deckchairs, pitch and putt, pedal boats for hire, Dawsons Amusements (then in an attractive Art Deco style building) and The Fun Palace were both thriving, Naylor's Cove (The Cove) was still in use, the Chair Lift to the Eagle's Nest.....Bray Head itself was a children's paradise and I used to nearly live up there with my friends when I was 8 or 9. I would barely dare to go up there on my own these days!

In my opinion the rot set in many years ago with traders and the council not investing in maintaining the place properly. The wonderful esplanade is a case in point: when the winter storms damaged the timber seats along the prom, the council gave up replacing the timber until it had all disappeared; the beautiful cast iron seat backs went the same way - one broken not replaced followed by another and another until none were left. Then came the gun emplacements (the mass concrete shelters) and, after I left, the unbelieveable lights...dear God!! I was back with my six year old in May 2008 and nearly ran out of the place...a sunny weekend and hardly a seafront business open, hostile signs warning against ball playing etc.etc...A very fine chipper near the Esplanade Hotel ,one of the cleanest I have ever set foot in, was doing a roaring trade and was the only high point of the visit.

Before I say some thing positive, I must finally have a swipe at the morons in the UDC who allowed the appalling development of houses on the left hand side of the old Greystones Road near Windgates - why not build all the way up to the Cross while your at it?

Now - although I'm an exile I still have friends in Bray and a fondness for the place which transcends reason and would love to get involved in a project such as the restoration of the Chair Lift to help reclaim the wonderful amenity that is Bray Head from the junkies and village idiots. In reality the entire curtilage of Bray Head should be in State ownership and properly wardened - it is such an asset. Is there anybody else out there who feels strongly enough to get off their backsides too? I have considerably experience in running voluntary organisations and that, as well as my physical help, is what I would bring to the party.

Cianos

Rebuilding the chair lifts would be a great idea, but I quite doubt it would ever happen given the shambolic ways the town is run.

I don't know of any chair lifts in Ireland so it could actually be a widespread attraction and give the town a real boost in domestic and international tourism. Every time I go up to the top of Bray head I am always quite surprised by how nice the view actually is. But it's a bit of a climb and thus currently inaccessible for a lot of people.

If they kept the price low (€2 or so per chair), they would get a lot of use. It'd be a very nice day out and affordable too. It'd be terrible if they launched it and then charged €10 a lift or something like that. The way it needs to be positioned is to be a primary attraction for people to make the trip to Bray, and then encourage the building of amenities around it to keep people there for the day.

Securing them at night away from vandalism shouldn't be too hard I'd imagine...why not just keep them suspended on the cable overnight, far enough out of reach? And as for the undesirables shooting up on Bray head etc, if there were enough visitors wandering about up there it'd no longer be a place worth going to to shoot up...the only reason it's chosen is because it is quiet and secluded in the first place.

Judgement Day

Cianos - guess by your location you won't be able to get actively involved if this project gets legs but would you join an organisation set-up to promote the rebuilding of the Chairlift?

Look at this pic link and weep! https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/

Cianos

Judgement Day wrote: »

Cianos - guess by your location you won't be able to get actively involved if this project gets legs but would you join an organisation set-up to promote the rebuilding of the Chairlift?

Look at this pic link and weep! https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/

I probably wouldn't be able to commit much time to it but I'd be interested in having some level of involvement. I may or may not have much to contribute, but no harm in giving it a go!