Limerick Council wins prestigious EU accolade for multimillion euro amenity

LIMERICK City and County Council has won a prestigious European accolade for a multi-million euro urban amenity project.

Limerick Council’s Go Green Routes, Castletroy Urban Greenway, was among the 116 European urban projects awarded the URBACT Good Practice label.

Last October, the URBACT Programme, which supports sustainable urban development across Europe, selected 116 projects for awards. Limerick Council’s €10.5m Go Green Routes project was one of those honoured.

The focus of the Go Green Routes project in Castletroy was to enhance the physical and mental wellbeing of urban residents by increasing their connection to nature.

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Limerick City and County Council chose the Castletroy Greenway as a brown site blank canvas to deliver a sustainable, inclusive, co-created design for both the community and nature. The landscape has been reshaped to create mounds covered in wildflowers and swales at low points and along paths.

The project provided the opportunity to create linkages between fragmented (sub)urban green spaces and implement nature-based solutions that focus on contributing to green infrastructure in keeping with the principles of the European Green Infrastructure Strategy.

With a strong focus on natural play, the area has been remodelled to create a space of interest for young and old.

Carmel Lynch, senior executive engineer, environment and climate action at Limerick City and County Council said: "We are thrilled to receive this good practice label in recognition of the Go Green Routes Horizon 2020 project which transformed the brown site along the Castletroy Urban Greenway into a sustainable play space using nature-based solutions.

"We would particularly like to thank and acknowledge our national and international partners for their collaboration on the project and to recognise the role played by the community in the co-creation aspect of the project."

Following this recognition, Limerick was promoted across Europe after being invited to showcase the Go Green Routes, Castletroy Urban Greenway at the 2025 URBACT City Festival alongside other forward-thinking European cities.

URBACT City Festivals are a celebration of cities and the practices that shape our urban communities.

The 2025 edition of the event took place this week in Wroclaw, and provided the space to discover the wealth of URBACT Good Practices, with a focus on building partnerships for URBACT’s Transfer Networks.