Louth County Council is looking for four Partner Cities interested in discovering and learning from their experience in the Dundalk Pilot as part of VARCITIES’ City-to-City Exchange! Located in the North-East of the Republic of Ireland, between the capital cities Dublin and Belfast, Dundalk is the administrative capital of County Louth. Louth County Council is developing with the support of VARCITIES three Visionary Solutions in Dundalk:

• Visionary Solution 1: Creation of Outdoor Learning Pod between Dundalk Library & Museum Quarter to showcase the newest technologies and host shared functions. Additionally, Virtual Learning Pod Sensors is installed to collate data on visitor numbers and duration of stay. A new Software will also be installed to record PV savings from existing PV roof panels on the Museum roof.
• Visionary Solution 2: Outdoor Urban Green Learning and Sensory Garden for health and well-being will enhance the area with new seating throughout the site and improved public lighting with LED lights, a new touch screen monitor displaying green learning and project’s information, and a rainwater harvesting system will encourage visitors to be more sustainable in the use of water.
• Visionary Solution 3: Sensor-equipped bike-stations will collect data of cyclist numbers and help the city better understand the use of the space.

Specifically, Dundalk has identified three challenges that VARCITIES is addressing:

• Relocation of staff car parking from courtyard area to the rear of the library
• Balancing use of space between pedestrian passage and cyclists
• Anti-social Behaviour especially in the late evening

The three Visionary Solutions are the key solutions that VARCITIES will support to address these challenges.

Discover more about Dundalk’s pilot on their Pilot Page: https://varcities.eu/pilot-cities/dundalk-ireland

Dundalk’s Partner Cities should share similar challenges and conditions (non-cumulative criteria) and be located in the EU, or in a country associated to Horizon Europe (such as the UK):

• Dundalk is located on the east coast of the Republic of Ireland, characterized by a maritime climate: cold winter, mild summer, and high rainfall throughout the year

• Dundalk is facing challenges related to lack of green open space, no outdoor amenities, and poor Lighting in an area with little passive surveillance.

Are you interested in discovering Dundalk’s experience in VARCITIES? Is your city facing similar challenges? Do you also want to better track health related data in your city using new IT technologies?

The selection process for the four Partner Cities of Louth County Council is currently on-going. The City-to-City Exchange is expected to start in the first months 2024.

For any enquiries, contact us at contact@varcities.eu

About VARCITIES City-to-City Exchange

To support the replication of VARCITIES approach, each of the seven Pilot Cities engages with four other Partner Cities in City-to-City Exchange to promote and upscale their Visionary Solutions, exchange on common challenges, barriers and experiences. Notably, the City-to-City Exchange aims to cover issues linked with stakeholder engagement, governance, replication, IT solutions and inclusivity. Through cross-learning, the 4 Partner Cities will participate in an online knowledge exchange with one of the Pilot Cities, supported by VARCITIES’ team, which may also be complemented by site visits. Partner Cities will be invited to join the Healthy Cities Helix, and future collaboration supported by European funding programmes will be explored.