The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) will consider buying land which adjoins the Glen of the Downs in Co Wicklow, Minister for Heritage and Nature Malcolm Noonan has said.
Mr Noonan said “when high nature value land comes on to the market, the National Parks and Wildlife Service will always consider it”.
However, Mr Noonan warned “if the price is as high as reported in the media, this would make it some of the most expensive land in the country”.
“Value for money is always fundamental in terms of acquisitions with taxpayers’ money,” he said.
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Mr Noonan added that the NPWS “doesn’t, however, conduct its negotiations through media”.
The lands in question, some 80 hectares (197 acres), along with the Glen of the Downs with its designated 59-hectare (146 acre) nature reserve were formerly part of the Bellevue estate, owned by the La Touche banking family.
The nature reserve is now a designated a Special Area of Conservation. A three-year campaign was waged by eco-activists in the late 1990s in an attempt to stop a road widening project on the N11 from taking land which was part of the nature reserve. The campaign did not prevent the road widening scheme, but the original scheme was amended to protect mature, native sessile oak, for which the glen is renowned.
The 80-ha land holding which was put up for sale last month comes to within some 50 metres of the Octogon, a Georgian folly dating from 1766, high on the eastern escarpment of the Glen of the Downs. A number of trails in the nature reserve leading to the Octogon pass through woodland which forms part of the land now offered for sale.
The land offered for sale includes some 40 hectares (100 acres) of woodland and a parcel of farmland amounting to some 28 hectares (94 acres) with spectacular views over the village of Delgany and out to the Irish Sea. A further parcel covers 1.25 hectares of farmland.
In a letter to Minister Noonan on Tuesday, Irish Environmental Network members An Taisce, The Irish Wildlife Trust, the Native Woodland Trust, along with ReWild Wicklow said that the sale of land “presents a unique opportunity for the state to more than double the size of this ancient oak woodland and connect it with Kindlestown Woods”.
Kindlestown Woods is a second wood in public ownership in the area and is located on Kindlestown Hill overlooking Bray head and the town of Greystones.
On Monday, members of Wicklow County Council unanimously voted to ask the State to buy the land.
An online petition started by Wicklow TD Jennifer Whitmore calling on the Government to intervene to secure the land for the State has garnered more than 4,000 signatures in the past four weeks.
Ms Whitmore has also called on her fellow Wicklow TD, Taoiseach Simon Harris, to intervene to secure the land for the State.
Ms Whitmore said she welcomed the involvement of national environmental bodies which she said emphasised the Glen was “a national issue”. She also welcomed Minister Noonan’s comments on value for money. She said the recognition that the Glen of the Downs was a nationally important would assist in the consideration of the purchase. “The money is there,” she said.
Wicklow auctioneers O’Neill and Flanagan have quoted a price “well in excess of €6.5 million for the entire land parcel, covering the wood and the farmland”.
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