An Irish Planning Students Blog

FINGAL’S new County Development Plan must be agreed by April 2011 with the first draft expected to go on public display next March.

Councillors met last week to begin the next phase of the preparation of the Plan following on from the initial round of public consultation during the summer.

Public representatives play an important role at this stage as they provide policy direction to the manager in drawing up the new Plan, which will set out the local authority’s principle objectives from 2011 to 2017.

The next key dates are January, February and early March next year when councillors will meet to consider the Manager’s draft, which will then go on public display.

Submissions will then be made from the public and councillors will meet to consider making amendments to the plan. County Manager David O’Connor said some 553 submissions were received from the public in the initial round of consultation, down from over 1,000 from the previous plan. Almost one in five submissions related to transportation issues, followed by concerns about community, recreation and open space. Mr O’Connor has made four general recommendations in relation to the Plan covering the promotion of sustainable development, minimising climate change, contributing to social inclusion and integrating high quality design to its work.

It is the aim of the council to realise the long-term Swords Strategic vision and to consolidate the growth of Balbriggan and Blanchardstown.

It is also the manager’s aim to consolidate growth and protect the identity of the other town’s around the region, as well as safeguarding the development of Dublin Airport. Mr O’Connor said it was estimated that the population was now tipping the quarter of a million mark.

Source: Fingal-Independent

Before the end of the week i hope to have a post written on the development plan process for those who are unsure how it works and also the time limits involved in the action of preparing a new development plan.

A LONG-awaited local area plan for Rivermeade in St Margaret’s will be completed by the middle of next year, according to Fingal County Council.

Cllr Tom Kelleher (Lab) put a motion to a meeting of the Balbriggan/Swords Area Committee last week asking for an update on the RV1 or rural village plan. The council’s planning department said that a number of issues identified in December of last year have delayed the plan.

Some of those issues relate to the need to examine the ecological impacts of development in the area on the Broadmeadows Estuary through the river Ward which traverses Rivermeade.

The limited capacity

of Swords Wastewater Treatment Plant which services the area is also an issue and the possibility of increasing flooding of the Ward River.

The location of the proposed Swords Western Ring Road also had to be looked at as part of the plan.

The council says to progress the local area plan for Rivermeade fully, the results of the Fingal East Meath Flood Risk Assessment Management Study FRAM), is required.

Interim results from the study have been delayed, but are now due in November 2009.

The planning department hope that, pending those results and of its own ‘appropriate assessment’ of the risk to Broadmeadows Estuary, the plan will be completed by early to mid 2010.

Source: Fingal Independent

BUS journey times through Dublin city centre have fallen by half since the controversial bus gGate started operating last July.

City traders claim the ban on cars using College Green in the morning and evening peak is killing business.

But up to 90 million Dublin Bus passengers a year will experience a marked reduction in their commuting times if the system is allowed remain in place.

New figures from Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann show journey times on all routes through the city centre have fallen since the bus gate opened.

Before the bus gate it took an average of 20 minutes to travel from O’Connell Street to Nassau Street, with journey times of 35 minutes not uncommon. Now, it takes just 11 minutes — or 18 minutes in very heavy traffic.

Dublin Bus also said that in September 2008, journeys through O’Connell Street, College Green and Dame Street in the morning peak took between three and 18 minutes to complete, with the average time almost 10 minutes.

With the College Green Quality Bus Corridor — or bus gate — in place, journeys are now taking between two and ten minutes, with an average of five minutes.

“We have ten routes which all show the same thing,” a Dublin Bus spokesman said. “For bus passengers, it’s all about knowing the journey times. It’s an extremely important priority for us. The bus gate is not a high capital project, but it has had a major impact.

“It’s of huge strategic benefit. It has calmed the whole city centre and taken out the congestion that affects all road users. We carry 140 million passengers a year, and up to 90 million would be affected by this, and 40pc of all buses travel along that route.”

Bus Eireann also said it had seen a number of benefits for commuters including reduced journey times, more consistent operating times and improved reliability of the services in terms of arrival and departure times.

“Feedback from customers on these services has been very positive about these benefits, which carry a large number of commuters in and out of the city every day to key population centres such as Ashbourne, Kells, Navan, Trim, Mullingar and Drogheda,” a spokesman for Dublin Bus said.

Improvements

“In general, there have been improvements in running times of peak-time services of between five and 10 minutes on each departure, which has been greatly welcomed by customers,” he added.

Cars are banned from using College Green from 7am to 10am and 4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday.

Retailers have threatened to take a High Court case against the ban, claiming it is responsible for a loss of trade.

Brown Thomas and Brown Thomas car park, Louis Copeland, Weirs, Q Park, Park Rite and Trinity Street car park have all threatened legal action, while the Dublin City Business Association claims that business is down 30pc because of the ban.

It wants the ban lifted until next year, when a new bridge opens across the River Liffey which will be able to accommodate car traffic.

- Paul Melia

Irish Independent

THE FINAL stage of work to replace one of Iarnród Éireann’s three railway crossings of the Shannon, a bridge near Lough Tap, between Dromod and Carrick-on-Shannon in Co Leitrim, gets under way today.

Over the next 12 days the line will be closed as the new steel bridge and concrete deck is lifted into place in four sections by the largest crane ever used in Ireland.

The crane, imported from Texas, has a lift capacity of 1,350 tonnes. The work was to have taken place from October 5th to 16th, but it was delayed. The replacement of the existing bridge,which dates from 1862, is expected to allow for considerable improvement in the speed of trains across the bridge, which had slowed to about walking pace in recent years.

In addition to the work on the bridge, the approach routes and embankments have been realigned and the entire structure is being raised by one metre to allow for larger vessels on the Shannon to pass underneath.

Iarnród Éireann said bus transfers will be in operation between Sligo town and all stations to Dromod. Passengers should note that buses will depart from Sligo and Collooney 30 minutes in advance of the scheduled train times to Dublin.

Costing €5.5 million, the bridge replacement brings to €150 million the total investment in the Dublin to Sligo line since 1999.

According to Iarnród Éireann, improvements have included renewal of track, resignalling and the upgrading of level crossings, platform lengthening and safety enhancements. The Sligo-Dublin route was the first to benefit from the new intercity railcars fleet. There will be eight daily services in each direction compared to three in 2003.

Iarnród Éireann said the increase in services has resulted in the Sligo-Dublin line becoming the network’s fastest growing route, with more than 1.34 million passenger journeys in 2008 – representing a jump of more than 30 per cent in three years.

Rail services to Sligo opened on December 3rd, 1862. The town was later connected by rail to Enniskillen, by the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway in 1879, and to Limerick in 1895.

The line to Enniskillen closed in 1957 and passenger services to Limerick closed in 1963. The Sligo to Limerick route is known as the Western Rail Corridor, part of which – the Ennis, Co Clare to Athenry Co Galway section – is due to reopen later this year.

Iarnród Éireann’s other rail crossings of the Shannon are at Athlone and between Limerick and Ennis.

Source: IrishTimes Link

AN BORD Pleanála has deferred a key decision due to be have been delivered yesterday on the controversial Corrib gas onshore pipeline in north Mayo.

The appeals board told The Irish Times that Shell EP Ireland’s application to modify the gas onshore pipeline route was under “active consideration” during board meetings that took place from Wednesday to Friday of this week.

“There was no outcome,” a board spokesman said. “Further meetings will be held next week, and there will be an outcome in the week starting November 2nd,” he said.

The deferral is the second by the appeals board since the oral hearing earlier this year into the application for a new route and for compulsory acquisition orders to private land. A spokesman said this was due to the “complex nature of the case”.

The 19-day oral hearing chaired by inspector Martin Nolan considered the application under the Strategic Infrastructure Act.

The new route runs through special areas of conservation designated under the EU habitats directive and includes two river crossings.

The offshore pipeline was laid by the developers during the summer, and construction of the onshore gas terminal at Bellanaboy is nearing completion.

The previous pipeline route was not subject to planning, and consent to compulsory acquisition of private land by a private company was signed by former marine minister Frank Fahey under amended gas Acts.

Opposition to this on health and safety grounds resulted in the jailing of five Erris residents, known as the Rossport Five, for 94 days in 2005.

The Health and Safety Authority informed the appeals board at the outset of the oral hearing last May that it had no remit, as off-site gas pipelines are not controlled by the Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations 2006.