Cork Harbour\u2019s proposed \u20ac80m zero\u2011emissions passenger ferry service is \u2013 for now \u2013 dead in the water, the man who floated the idea a year ago has confirmed to The Echo.<\/p>\n
Aidan Coffey, chief executive of Portus Greenway Limited, trading as Harbour Link, repeated his claim that the decision to halt the proposed all-electric ferry was caused by Cork City Council\u2019s decision to commission a study into river usage in the city.<\/p>\n
He also cited as a complicating factor the council\u2019s plan for the construction of three new bridges across the River Lee.<\/p>\n
Mr Coffey is the CEO of the unrelated Hibernia Line ferry operator, which on Thursday announced the launch of its new Ringaskiddy to Boulogne-sur-Mer service.<\/p>\n
This time last year, Harbour Link said it was in the advanced stages of planning for the project, which the company hoped would carry up to 1.5m passengers annually.<\/p>\n
At the time, Mr Coffey said he hoped to submit planning applications within a year, with the first all\u2011electric ferry envisaged to be carrying passengers by early to mid\u20112027.<\/p>\n
Now, however, Mr Coffey confirmed that the proposed service \u2014 Cork Harbour\u2019s first passenger ferry service in more than 100 years \u2013 would not be happening any time soon.<\/p>\n
Speaking to The Echo, Mr Coffey said he had decided he needed to devote his energy to the launch of Hibernia Line, but added that he hoped to one day revisit the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cCork City Council \u2026 are doing a river usage study, although they\u2019ve planned three bridges across the river, but now they\u2019re doing a river usage study,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cBut lookit, we just have to take our time and let them do their due process and get the river usage study out of the way, and then of course we will look to maybe come back at that again.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Mr Coffey conceded that he had not applied for a marine area consent (MAC) from the Marine Area Regulatory Authority (MARA), which would be the first step in the planning process.<\/p>\n
Under the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, an MAC granting the right to occupy a defined area of the sea and seabed for a designated purpose, must be secured before any planning application is made to An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la or the coastal local authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we see the result of the river usage study, there\u2019s just no point,\u201d Mr Coffey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne has to take precedent above the other, and even if we go to Mara now, they\u2019ll just tell us wait for the river usage study.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A council spokesperson said: \u201cThe publication of the [river usage study] does not affect the need for or prevent an MAC application through Mara.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Mara said the authority does not discuss individual applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork Harbour\u2019s proposed \u20ac80m zero\u2011emissions passenger ferry service is \u2013 for now \u2013 dead in the water, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-442189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}