Scoping study published - insufficient funds for Navan

[Navan Junction]

Olivia Kelly, Irish Times, Tue, Jan 22, 2008

An Bord Pleanála has refused permission for an industrial estate beside the new M3 motorway near Dunboyne, Co Meath, on the grounds that it would damage plans for the Dublin-Meath rail link and constitute an "unsustainable car dependent development".

Meath county councillors last June voted unanimously to rezone the land for the 42-acre industrial /business estate, in contravention of their own development plan. The application for 32 offices, light industrial and warehousing units by Royal Gateway Holding Ltd, was subsequently granted planning permission by the council but was appealed by An Taisce to An Bord Pleanála.

In its ruling, the board said that the development contravened both national and regional policies and was contrary to proper planning and sustainable development of the area.

The development site was 1km north of a proposed railway station and park-and-ride facility and would be "prejudicial" to the development of a plan for the use of the land surrounding the major rail project. The site would be accessed by a link road to the M3 which forms an "integral part of the regional road and motorway system".

Additional traffic caused by the development would "interfere with the free-flow of traffic and the carrying capacity" of the road and thus "fail to protect public investment in the national road network", the planning board said.

"It is considered that the proposed development, which would be principally dependent on private car, would lead to the creation of an unsustainable car dependent development."

© 2008 The Irish Times

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Navan Junction

An Bord Pleanála has refused permission ..... Dunboyne, Co Meath .... rail link ...

I shouldn't speed read.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Whilst its nice to go on holidays in January you do have to be careful about letting cats out of bags. Maybe I'm cynical. The realpolitik is simple: keep dangling this Carrott, keep flogging this horse for all its worth - there are local elections to be won. Never mind the amazing political capital that can be bought where and when it really matters - in the FF parlimentary party rooms in Kildare Street when Bertie throws in the towel or is knifed in the back. Meath may get some coinage, Dempsey may become relativly important again.

I was wondering, though, at a billion euro between a road and a rail link to Navan, surely it is cheaper to bring the Dubs back home, say relocate them in Adamstown?

[Derek Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

I was wondering, though, at a billion euro between a road and a rail link to Navan, surely it is cheaper to bring the Dubs back home, say relocate them in Adamstown?

Sounds good alright. And probably cheaper.

[Colm Donoghue]

I saw someone say If Noel Dempsey told me the sun was going to rise tomorrow, I'd rush out and buy candles.

There's only one man who can convince me otherwise and he's not a member of this organisation.....

[Navan Junction]

That's politics for ya, and that's politicians. In general, they don't like public transport of any sorts (unless it can be privatised), so you are swimming against the current whenever any type of push is amde for improvements.

Like Shakespeare's whited sepulchre, flash new diesel trains, carparks and station upgrades are just cosmetic efforts to hide the fact that we aren't really broadening our railway in any great hurry, not even in capacity terms

At one stage of the state's existence, huge sums of money were poured into the railway. Most of it was eaten up in the dieselisation of the fleet, and much of it was wasted as staff numbers on trains remained at the same levels as on the more labour intensive steam trains

Anyway IÉ aren't hungry for network expansion and neither are politicians, unless they are given no choice by public demand.

That really is the key to whether Dempsey delivers or not. Not whether IÉ say they want to do it, not what any of us say here, not what any politicians think.

If enough voters get pissed off, and if enough of an impact is made on the politicians by the voting public then you'll see action.

The Navan railway is a typical football type issue

At the end of the day if the people of Meath demand the railway, chances are they will get it (at some point). In that respect, Noel Dempsey is irrelevant other than whether he feels sufficiently pressurised to act.

And that is down to the voters of the county. It's good sport debating whether he will or will not deliver, but at the end of the day he'll do what he has to do, and political form says polticians do no more than they have to.

It just depends on what the commuters in Meath are prepared to settle for. The Blanch N3/M50 interchange will solve the problem of today, but one thing we know is that nature hates a vacuum and commuting patterns will change to eat that capacity up as quickly as possible.

And then we'll be back to looking at how we can get people through Blanchardstown once again, and the only answer this time will be the railway.

Fundamentally, what is wrong with the N3 Meath situation is that despite being the busiest bus corridor in Ireland, it is still basically a public transport wasteland.

The M50 upgrade will ease conjestion in the short term, but traffic volumes on the M50 will result in traffic cascading back onto the N3 again in the not too distant future after it opens, and traffic will continue to grow on the N3, partially from the return of all of the Navan/Kells/north Meath commuters that go on a mystery tour cross country to the N2 at the moment and partially through growth.

Either way, the railway has a future in Meath. We can take a snapshot of the day that the M50 upgrade is completed and the M3 opens. Of course everyone will think life is good on that day and for while after it.

But that changes, it always does when it comes to the bottlenecks around Dublin. Capacity won't last for long where the M50 and it's approaches are concerned.

It's not down to Dempsey whether this happens. It will happen because it has to happen. The question is when, and whether it is Dempsey that delivers it, or some other politician

That again is down to the people of Meath

[philip]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

I was wondering, though, at a billion euro between a road and a rail link to Navan, surely it is cheaper to bring the Dubs back home, say relocate them in Adamstown?

Irrespective of the billion squids....it's scandalous that we're still allowing the sprawl out to places like Navan when big gaps exist in Dublin such as at Clonburris. If only other local authorities would follow South Dublin's lead. That website is way ahead of everyone else and you know something....SDCC follow through on their 'masterplans' and do their best wrt. public transport integration. There are miles and miles of unused and rarely used QBC (not just buslane) in South Dublin. The council has built it.....where are the buses?