14 Apr 2026

STRANGFORD LOUGH CROSSING CAMPAIGN Campaign Update — 14 April 2026

Kevin Barry BSc(Hons) MRICS Chartered Quantity Surveyor, Portaferry www.strangfordloughcrossing.org | mail@kevinbarryqs.com

THE BI-COUNCIL MANDATE IS NOW COMPLETE

Both councils have spoken. The ball is firmly in the Minister’s court.

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council has now passed a formal resolution calling for an independent feasibility study into a permanent fixed crossing between Portaferry and Strangford. This follows the unanimous resolution passed by Ards and North Down Borough Council in late March 2026.

That is not a minor footnote. It is a material development in the campaign’s evidence base.

The Department for Infrastructure’s own correspondence — reference TOF-0467-2025, dated 24 October 2025, signed by Ian McClung, Head of Consultancy Services, DfI Transport and Road Asset Management (TRAM), Rathkeltair House, Downpatrick — placed the Eastern Transport Plan 2035 at the centre of its reasoning for refusal. That letter explicitly acknowledged that the Eastern Transport Plan covers local transport movements for five council areas, including both Ards and North Down Borough Council and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. The two councils whose territory is directly divided by Strangford Lough have now formally and independently resolved that the question of a fixed crossing warrants independent, evidence-based assessment.

The bi-council political base the campaign identified as necessary to complete the Eastern Transport Plan argument is now in place. That gap no longer exists. DfI’s own chosen planning vehicle for this matter now has both directly affected councils formally on record in support of a feasibility study.

WHERE THIS LEAVES MINISTER KIMMINS

The campaign’s sole ask remains a time-bound, independent feasibility study conducted in accordance with Transport Appraisal Guidance (TAG) — DfI’s own standard appraisal framework — at an independently estimated cost of approximately £750,000 to £1,000,000. This is not a commitment to a bridge. It is a commitment to evidence.

The Minister’s own words are the starting point. In the Northern Ireland Assembly Official Report (Hansard), Volume 188, No. 2, Tuesday 3 February 2026, during the Adjournment Debate on the A20 Portaferry Road, Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins MLA responded to a question on the Strangford Lough Crossing with the words: “why not? I am happy to keep that under review.” Those words are on the permanent public record.

They stand in direct contrast to the formal written position maintained by her Department. Reference TOF-0467-2025 (24 October 2025, Ian McClung, Head of Consultancy Services, DfI TRAM) states that the existing ferry service provides a level of service that meets both current and projected demand, that a fixed crossing is not a priority at this time, and that the Department does not consider it an effective use of limited resources to initiate a cost review or pursue Shared Island funding for a feasibility study.

The contradiction between what the Minister said on the Assembly floor on 3 February 2026 and what her Department wrote on 24 October 2025 is the central pressure point for this campaign. Ministerial openness expressed publicly must not be permitted to be quietly re-absorbed into institutional resistance. The mechanism to prevent that outcome is a formal Ministerial direction to officials to commission the study within a defined timeframe.

The governance context warrants continued attention. The “Raising a Concern” investigation, concluded by Sian Kerr, Director, Transport Planning and Policy Directorate, on 19 January 2026, found no evidence to substantiate the campaign’s concerns. That investigation was conducted within the same directorate that issued the formal refusal correspondence. No external, independent body assessed the process or the finding at any stage.

THE ROLE OF CHRIS HAZZARD MP

Chris Hazzard MP (South Down, Sinn Féin) has sought a direct meeting with Minister Kimmins, and scheduled for taking place next month, as advised by Chris Hazzard MP office today, 14 April 2026. The campaign’s detailed briefing document, delivered to Mr Hazzard on 13 March 2026, set out four specific asks. Ask 3 in that briefing was to encourage a formal resolution from Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. That ask has now been delivered.

The remaining asks carry the operational priority: a direct word with the Minister translating her Assembly statement into a formal departmental direction; a formal Parliamentary or Assembly Question creating a public record requiring a Ministerial answer; and inclusion of the Strangford Lough Crossing in the Regional Transport Plan 2035 as a scheme requiring further assessment. Mr Hazzard’s relationship with the Minister is a strategically significant channel. The campaign looks forward to the outcome of his meeting with Minister Kimmins.

THE ECONOMIC CASE REMAINS INDEPENDENTLY UNCONTESTED

The Department has never subjected its economic position to independent scrutiny. Its cost estimate of approximately £650 million originates in an internal departmental memo dated 22 August 2024, authored by Mark McPeak, Divisional Roads Manager, Southern Division, and disclosed under Freedom of Information reference DFI-2024-0412. In that memo, Mr McPeak characterised the figure as a “very rough cost estimate.” It has never been professionally tested.

The annual net public subsidy for the Strangford ferry service is approximately £2.09 million, comprising gross operating costs of approximately £3.52 million against income of approximately £1.43 million, as disclosed under Freedom of Information reference DFI-2024-0366. The service operates at approximately 34 per cent of its maximum vehicle capacity. This is not evidence of low demand. It is evidence of suppressed demand.

The NI Executive Sub-Regional Economic Plan (October 2024) records Ards and North Down as having the lowest median wages in Northern Ireland and Newry, Mourne and Down as the second lowest. Approximately 29,000 vehicles per day travel road routes around Strangford Lough. Approximately 650 vehicles per day use the ferry, as confirmed by DfI traffic count data for the period 2018 to 2023. The HITRANS Corran Narrows Fixed Link Feasibility Study (2020, Stantec UK Ltd with COWI) provides the closest comparable in the United Kingdom: a crossing with 92 per cent comparable traffic volumes to Strangford, where Highland Council commissioned a full feasibility study encompassing 72 economic scenarios, of which 83 per cent returned positive Benefit-Cost Ratios. Highland Council did not treat the absence of a study as a substitute for one.

NEXT STEPS

The direct meeting between Chris Hazzard MP and Minister Kimmins is the single most important near-term event. The Eastern Transport Plan 2035 consultation is the formal planning vehicle through which a direction to assess the Strangford Lough Crossing as a scheme requiring further appraisal can be embedded in policy. Both council resolutions are now available as documented supporting evidence for that consultation response.

The campaign continues to pursue all avenues, cross-party and cross-community, with the same singular and proportionate ask it has maintained from the outset: commission the study. Let the evidence speak.

Kevin Barry BSc(Hons) MRICS Chartered Quantity Surveyor Strangford Lough Crossing Campaign www.strangfordloughcrossing.org mail@kevinbarryqs.com

ADDENDUM — FOR GENERAL READERS

Why the Road Classification System Matters: A Plain English Explanation

The Department for Infrastructure manages Northern Ireland’s road network in tiers, much like football operates in divisions. At the top sits the Regional Strategic Transport Network — the Premier League, if you will. These are the major arterial routes: the M1, the M2, the A1 to Dublin. Roads in this division attract the most investment, the most planning attention, and direct access to the most significant funding streams. Schemes on these roads are assessed at the highest level and can draw on national and cross-border funding mechanisms.

Below that sits what might be called the Championship: the local transport network, managed through area-based transport plans such as the Eastern Transport Plan 2035, which covers Ards and North Down Borough Council and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, among others. Roads in this division receive a different level of scrutiny, different funding pathways, and are assessed against more locally focused criteria.

The A2 coastal route, which runs along both sides of Strangford Lough, sits in the Championship tier — local transport, not strategic network. The Department for Infrastructure has confirmed this classification in its formal correspondence, including reference TOF-0467-2025 (Ian McClung, Head of Consultancy Services, DfI Transport and Road Asset Management, 24 October 2025), which states explicitly that the A2 coastal route is not part of the Regional Strategic Transport Network.

Here lies the difficulty. The gap in the A2 at Strangford Lough is not a pothole. It is a 1 kilometre water crossing that, when the ferry is unavailable, forces a detour of approximately 75 kilometres. No other A-road in Northern Ireland has a gap of this nature. Yet because the route is classified as local rather than strategic, the crossing is assessed as a local transport matter rather than a strategic infrastructure question. The funding doors that open for Premier League roads remain closed.

Consider the Narrow Water Bridge by comparison. That crossing, connecting County Down and County Louth across Carlingford Lough, attracted a construction contract of €102 million, funded through the Irish Government’s Shared Island Fund (National Development Plan Sectoral Plan, Shared Island, 2025). It is currently under construction with completion projected for late 2027. It was recognised as strategic infrastructure warranting cross-border public investment. The Strangford Lough Crossing — which connects two parts of the same road in the same jurisdiction — has not been granted equivalent assessment.

The campaign’s ask is not to redraw the classification system. It is simply this: before the Department concludes that the crossing belongs permanently in the Championship tier with Championship-level resources, it should commission an independent, time bound, TAG-compliant feasibility study to test whether that classification is correct. A club is not relegated without playing the matches. A crossing should not be dismissed without conducting the study.

This addendum is an illustrative analogy for general readers. All factual references are sourced to primary documents cited in the main campaign update above.

Kevin Barry BSc(Hons) MRICS | www.strangfordloughcrossing.org | mail@kevinbarryqs.com