It's a Sunday afternoon in Greystones, our small town by the ocean, and doom approaches.
The County Council has joined with two property development firms, Park Developments and Sisk, to steal a large part of the foreshore at the harbour, reclaim 37 acres from the sea, and build 375 houses and apartments plus commercial developments and a marina. The apartment blocks will tower over the existing Victorian buildings in the locality, will conflict entirely with the human scale of the locality, and will destroy the existing views and sightlines at the harbour. The plan involves reclaiming 37 acres from the sea, and several experts say it will worsen the continuing problem of coastal erosion to the north of the harbour, where clay cliffs regularly crumble to the beach below.
That's if the conspirators can get away with it.
The project is now before the Irish Planning Appeals Board (Bord Pleanala). Over 5,000 objections have now been lodged there. An oral hearing will take place, probably in April.
If the board agrees with the local council, then we are faced with up to five years of heavy construction traffic, with trucks carrying materials travelling via inadequate local roads, through residential areas, past two elementary schools, at a rate of one every two minutes; a toxic cloud of dust from an onsite concrete casting plant (I live, with my wife and two small kids, within the 700 metre radius of the plume); and the destruction of existing amenities and lack of access to others during construction.
And who in their right mind would create a housing development on the sea, when sea levels are forecast to rise by up to 8 metres within 30 years due to climate change? Only corporations who will have made their multimillion euro profits and be long gone, leaving the people who buy them to act as Canute.
Want to know more? Try these links:
www.greystonesmarina.com (Greystones Protection and Development Association)
www.wicklow.ie/specialprojects/EIS/Non%20Tech%20Summary.pdf (summary of the Environmental Impact Statement)
www.wicklow.ie/specialprojects/eis-photomontage.htm (this page has links to photo-montages of the proposal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greystones
www.visitwicklow.ie/images/WalkingPDFs/Greystones%202.pdf (get an idea of what our area looks like)
www.pleanala.ie/data1/searchdetails.asp?id=703316&caseno=CF2002
The County Council has joined with two property development firms, Park Developments and Sisk, to steal a large part of the foreshore at the harbour, reclaim 37 acres from the sea, and build 375 houses and apartments plus commercial developments and a marina. The apartment blocks will tower over the existing Victorian buildings in the locality, will conflict entirely with the human scale of the locality, and will destroy the existing views and sightlines at the harbour. The plan involves reclaiming 37 acres from the sea, and several experts say it will worsen the continuing problem of coastal erosion to the north of the harbour, where clay cliffs regularly crumble to the beach below.
That's if the conspirators can get away with it.
The project is now before the Irish Planning Appeals Board (Bord Pleanala). Over 5,000 objections have now been lodged there. An oral hearing will take place, probably in April.
If the board agrees with the local council, then we are faced with up to five years of heavy construction traffic, with trucks carrying materials travelling via inadequate local roads, through residential areas, past two elementary schools, at a rate of one every two minutes; a toxic cloud of dust from an onsite concrete casting plant (I live, with my wife and two small kids, within the 700 metre radius of the plume); and the destruction of existing amenities and lack of access to others during construction.
And who in their right mind would create a housing development on the sea, when sea levels are forecast to rise by up to 8 metres within 30 years due to climate change? Only corporations who will have made their multimillion euro profits and be long gone, leaving the people who buy them to act as Canute.
Want to know more? Try these links:
www.greystonesmarina.com (Greystones Protection and Development Association)
www.wicklow.ie/specialprojects/EIS/Non%20Tech%20Summary.pdf (summary of the Environmental Impact Statement)
www.wicklow.ie/specialprojects/eis-photomontage.htm (this page has links to photo-montages of the proposal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greystones
www.visitwicklow.ie/images/WalkingPDFs/Greystones%202.pdf (get an idea of what our area looks like)
www.pleanala.ie/data1/searchdetails.asp?id=703316&caseno=CF2002
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