The Cliff Walk discussion thread

How is rockfalll easily predictable?

A picture was posted of a rockfall on the other thread as if it was nothing but I would not have liked to have been walking on the path when it happened. Very dangerous.

How can you say the issue is not erosion? Have you conducted a geological survey of the area? Perhaps you can share it with us and the council?

Also,your complaints like shoddy gate are just ridiculous. What do you want? An information centre explaining the situation?

Safety has to be the number one priority and the council are right not to take risks. If it was open and something did happen and somebody got injured or killed then people would be on here blaming the council.

It is even more closed than before. They've extended the barrier on the Greystones end.

Yeah, got caught out by the new extended barriers on the greystones side recently when i went for a dawn run over the hill. They have gone to some effort to discourage access, resulting in the need for a very sketchy climb around the extended piece of palisade fencing hanging over the cliffs, on three occasions. It's such a shame, as the more inland the walk goes the less appealing it is. The bits with the coastal views are the best bits. Anyway, with the effort they have gone to bar the way I wouldn't be holding my breath for any sort of speedy resolution and re-opening.

At this stage, the walk from the greystones side is rubbish, a wander uphill through a field or two and then turn around and back you go. At least from Bray you can get up to the cross and there are few other loops you can still access.

Shameful. It's closed for a reason.

there's a more recent update than that. The Bray rockfall is to be cleared and made safe early in 2024, and the diversion (via the road) at the Greystones side will be signposted properly.

Reopening of the Greystones side is dependent on CPOing some land which they're only starting to do now as they had been trying to negotiate a voluntary sale. CPO could take years, it's a farce. They should have made an offer, given them 3 months to accept and then started the CPO. If this was a road, it would have been re-opened within 6 months.

I haven't been along it recently but I believe it is blocked at the Greystones side as well and they've added extra obstacles recently. There is a steep path from the loop trail down to the cliff walk, but this may be blocked off as well as it connects on the Bray side of the landslide, I'm not sure.

Can you still do the walk to Greystones from the top of Bray head instead of the side?

How exactly? I've not been near the Greystones end of the walk in ages so don't know where the path is blocked at that end. So do you walk along the top as far as the path that heads off left down to the path near the (now invisible again!) EIRE 8 sign above the tunnel? And then continue along the Cliff Path, or is there another way?

Thanks! So the blockage at the the Greystones end is further along in the Bray direction then?

So it's not possible to come off the top of Bray Head and continue on into Greystones without climbing over the obstacle blocking the path at the Greystones end after all then? I'm confused.

I'm surprised that there is signposting people to a route declared officially dangerous

This is awful. We're so bad at maintaining amenities in this country.

Absolutely not. The people vandalising the railings and climbing around are the vandals.

Ah OK. You think the council should allow a dangerous situation and you support people vandals vandalising fences.

...

No but wicklow cc have ignored ongoing erosion issues at the Greystones end for decades now, certainly since I was walking it 35ish years ago.

Wicklow CC don't know the meaning of the word "proactive" when it comes to ongoing maintenance of anything, let alone a valuable asset like the Cliff Path.

To be fair

A) some erosion of it is more recent

B) we didn't have the same suing compo culture 35 years ago

C) Coastal erosion is now more of a problem because of climate change

There are people vandalising the fence and the walk. It's disingenuous to call WCC the vandals in that circumstances.

Of course some of the erosion is more recent. That's the nature of erosion, it will get worse if left unchecked like WCC have done for a long time. My point is this was an issue for WCC to start working on decades ago - it's not like they didn't know about it - but they ignored it and now their 'solution' is to put up fences to block access. You said

The council didnt create rockfall and path erosion 🙄🙄🙄

but the fact is their negligence in maintaining the amenity has contributed to it, there's no doubt about that.

Update in the indo yesterday

http://archive.today/MCx0s

We used to walk that at least once a month during the summer and meet family in Bray for dinner on the seafront. I dont think we have met in Bray once since they closed it.

the area in question is halfway up Bray Head and obviously quite close to the area that has collapsed, I don't think it's got development potential. There no real scope for more development on the seaward side of the railway.