Greenways, recreational access and landowner willingness to accept: a contingent valuation study of farmers in Ireland

Abstract

There are ambitious plans to construct an extensive network of off-road walking and cycling routes, known as greenways, across Ireland. However, land acquisition has proven challenging in some rural areas. This paper uses a contingent valuation study, based on the Teagasc National Farm Survey (NFS) of Ireland, to explore farmers’ willingness to participate in greenway development. The results reveal that farmers are split on the issue of greenway land acquisition: approximately half would not allow a route to run through their farm, irrespective of compensation. Farmers’ main concerns in this regard are: insurance, impact on farming operations and nuisance/crime. Of the farmers willing to participate in greenway development, the mean (once-off) payment required is €56,000 per kilometre of greenway length. These findings suggest that Irish Government agencies and local authorities must work to alleviate farmers’ concerns and undertake extensive consultation to yield acceptable route options.

Keywords:

• contingent valuation
• spike model
• recreational access
• landowners
• greenway

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The consultation process was undertaken by Transport Infrastructure Ireland at the behest of the Department of Transport Tourism and Art. The process was initiated due to a series of objections from landowners and farmer organisations to a section of the proposed Dublin-Galway greenway in east County Galway. The consultation process was enacted to meet with landowners along the proposed route of the greenway in east Galway. These meetings were conducted in person and could be done individually or in small groups depending on the landowner’s preference. The three primary aims of the consultation were to explain the greenway project in more detail, record their concerns and to ask whether they would be willing to accommodate the route on their lands. Two hundred landowners in east Galway along the proposed route were interviewed in this manner.