Works to begin in August to make pedestrianisation of Malahide’s New Street permanent, council engineer says

The council is expected to start works in August to change up New Street in Malahide with wider footpaths, outdoor dining areas, and more trees, to make permanent the street’s pedestrianisation, a council official said at a meeting last Wednesday.  

The works are going to take an estimated 18 months, said Shane McMorrow, a council executive engineer at the meeting. “And the stakeholders on the street did mention that they’d like a break during the summer and a break during the winter.”

But, throughout the whole period of works, the council intends to keep the street open for business, he said at the 1 April meeting of the Howth/Malahide Area Committee.

The council’s plans for New Street had faced setbacks when Nicola Byrne, a resident of the area, brought a judicial review against the project. 

The council had temporarily pedestrianised the 150 metre street in June 2021, wrote Mr Justice Richard Humphreys in his judgment on the judicial review a year ago. 

“Never let a good crisis go to waste is a concept frequently, albeit probably inaccurately, attributed to Winston Churchill,” Humphreys wrote. “In that spirit, Fingal County Council’s response to the Covid emergency included the temporary pedestrianisation.”

Byrne tried to get an injunction against the temporary pedestrianisation, Humphreys wrote. When she was unsuccessful, she replied “in an equally Churchillian spirit of shrugging off that defeat and fighting the council, if not quite on the beaches of Malahide, at least on its pedestrianised roadways.”

Unlike Churchill, however, Byrne lost the war. Humphreys dismissed Byrne’s High Court challenge in his 11 April 2025 judgement.  

Before he wrote that judgement, Humphreys visited New Street, and he wrote that “The current state of the pedestrianised New Street is rather half-hearted as pedestrianisations go.” 

“The road/footpath construction and layout is that of an active roadway, with no real physical barriers to vehicles coming in or out,” Humphreys wrote. “There were both commercial and non-commercial vehicles driving on the street, as well as both types of vehicle parked.” 

It is this situation that the council is seeking to change with the works it plans to start in August.

The council completed a full tender package in December, and carried out their final pre-construction with street stakeholders in February, McMorrow said as he gave local councillors an update on the project at the committee meeting last Wednesday.

During that consultation, the council received requests for breaks in construction activity to facilitate trade on the street both during the summer and Christmas periods, he said.

The council will aim to appoint a contractor in June or July, before proceeding with construction work afterwards, he said. “Construction is due to take place in August 2026 after the busy summer period break that was requested by the stakeholders.”

Green Party Councillor David Healy said it is a real mixture of emotions at this stage. “There’s delight that things are moving along, and deep frustration that we’re still here, and that the talented team that we have working on this are still working on this.”

Fianna Fáil Councillor Eoghan O’Brien said a lot of people are anxious to get work started. But, he asked what groups were being represented at the consultation stage? “Was that purely traders on the street, the various different businesses, or were there other consultees in terms of the community groups locally?”

It was a targeted meeting with stakeholders, McMorrow said. “It was to do with practical aspects in terms of access to their businesses, specific exits and entrances from their premises, and stuff like that.”

“So yes, it was just stakeholders on the street at this stage to hone in on what we need to hone in on for the construction period,” he said.

Does the council envisage any disruptions whereby a business may need to close for a full day? Fianna Fáil Councillor Cathal Haughey asked.

The expected timeline is the 18 months plus the breaks over the summer and winter months, McMorrow said. “But we intend to keep the street open for pedestrians during the whole construction period.”

There won’t be cases where businesses need to close for extended periods of time, he said.

Their approach will be to keep the street open, and to do the work in phases, he said, “and move along the street to facilitate that”.

Social Democrats Councillor Joan Hopkins asked if the price agreed by the council with the contractor could increase if the project takes more than those 18 months. “So if they go over the 18 months, are we going to be charged for that, or is that all built in?” she asked.

It’s a fixed price lump-sum, McMorrow said without specifying the price. “Yes, the price will be for the period that we’ve specified. But, we’ve specified it in such a way that it’s kind of a good guess.”

They don’t think it will go over that price, he said. “But it will be up to them to make the programme and make it work within that timeframe.”