Conurbations 
 

 

Newry - Dundalk

Territories:
Northern Ireland
Republic of Ireland

• Newry District Council

• Mourne District Council

• Dundalk Town Council
• Louth County Council



General presentation




The cities of Newry (Northern Ireland) and Dundalk (republic of Ireland) are separated by 14 miles and a political border. With urban populations of approximately 28,000 and 35,000 respectively, Newry is the fourth-largest city in Northern Ireland and eighth in Ireland and Dundalk is the county town of County Louth in Ireland. The Newry-Dundalk Twin City Region is located at the centre of Dublin Belfast  corridor. The position of the sub-region on the M1/A1 motorway, rail links and easy access to international airports and ports provide good mobility and connectivity.
 

Characterised by a strong spatial agenda led by local government collaboration, the Newry-Dundalk Twin City Project has the potential to deliver a spatially integrated approach to problem solving that involves actors from local, regional and central levels in both jurisdictions. The challenge to the Newry-Dundalk Region is how best to arrive at new forms of regional governance above and beyond traditional administrative and nationally orientated frameworks. In the planning, development and investment interests of the Newry-Dundalk area the practical benefits of cooperation should be reflected in the cost savings on economic infrastructure; pooling of expertise; sharing of good practice and efficiencies in enterprise development.

 

Aims


The Newry-Dundalk Twin City Initiative has the capacity to:

  • Facilitate an integrated approach to the strategic planning of the region that takes as its starting point the particular and special social, economic and infrastructural needs of the area.
  • Promote a view that the Twin City Initiative has as much to do with managing the development of the eastern seaboard corridor as it has to do with the regeneration of the region.
  • Address the particular problems of the border region which result from its perceived peripheral location on the edges of two, centralised jurisdictions and confront the legacy of higher than average levels of overall and long term unemployment.
  • Harness the potential of the neighbouring settlements to fulfill their strategic gateway status in driving forward a sustainable central corridor strategy on Ireland’s eastern seaboard.
  • Recapture a regional influence for the two settlements at the centre of the corridor, restore their natural hinterland and enable them to power a regional economy that is competitive as opposed to dependent.
  • Enable the two settlements to reassert their authority as progressive centres of a coherent and thriving region rather than to be relegated to the status of peripheral location.
  • Unlock a city region relationship that can harness the economic benefits of a wholly untapped environmental resource including a potential trans-national or geo park mid distant between the islands respective capital cities.

 

Historical

Newry and Dundalk has been committed to cross-border co-operation for many years (since 1976). In the years 2000, the co-operation between the two cities was considerably reinforced, and led to the concept of twin-city.

Several reports supporting this project. It there had, first of all, on the level of the central governments, InterTradeIreland report on spatial strategies on the island of Ireland examined the potential of synergistically linking the Regional Development Strategy (RDS) in Northern Ireland and the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) in Ireland.

At the local level, it was the Newry-Dundalk Twin City Report of 2006 which provided a convincing rationale for co-operation between Newry and Dundalk.

Moreover, in January 2009, The International Centers for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD), at the request of the Minister for the regional development of Northern Ireland and Minister for the Environment, the Heritage and the Local Government of the Irish Republic, published a report making the synthesis of the two preceding studies. This research reinforce and build on these reports, demonstrating how the NSS and RDS can be successfully linked at a local level and what actions, supported by central government, can make the twin city concept a reality.

Finally, a strategic catalyst for the Newry-Dundalk Twin City Project has been the recent opening of the crucial cross border link in the Trans-European Network on the eastern seaboard of the island of Ireland. This key infrastructure link, funded by the respective central governments, north and south, is repositioned the Newry-Dundalk Twin City as a strategic centre within the Belfast-Dublin Corridor.
 

Newry-Dundalk twin City Region report


Prompted by the third Annual Ireland –Harvard Conference, which took place in Newry in September 2003 and which introduced the concept of the bi-polar city, the study is very much pitched at the strategic planning level and will explore the collective strength of Newry and Dundalk in terms of their regional role as major drivers of economic development.

The objective of the study is to explore and evaluate the strategic case for the creation of a Newry/Dundalk twin city.

The study makes four proposes :


- Geo-tourism and the management of a shared landscape and natural heritage to safeguard the geological assets and the natural resource of the Mournes, Cooley, Slieve Gullion, and Carlingford Lough and to develop their tourism potential.

- A Dundalk/Newry Centre of Excellence to create a sustainable-energy community linked to the work of Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) and EU CONCERTO funding, which is positioning Dundalk 2020 as an island exemplar.

- A coordinated regeneration strategy for older areas in Newry and Dundalk, to simultaneously promote the distinctiveness of the two cities and further the complementarities of their respective urban functions. A proactive strategy reinforces the sustainable development of the region by focusing new development within existing designated urban zones and protecting environmentally sensitive areas from over-development.

- A Newry-Dundalk Cross-Border International Services Zone linked to international financial and other related services.




For more information :
read the  study, published in 2006

read the study, published in 2009