Playground for Hartstown Park
Over objections from a council manager, councillors agreed a motion to start the process of planning and consultation with residents for a new playground in Hartstown Park.
It was at the 2 November meeting of the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart area committee that Sinn Féin Councillor Angela Donnelly proposed the motion.
She sounded frustrated. “I just can’t understand why it takes so long to even agree to consider a playground in an area,” she said.
Last September, Donnelly put in a motion requesting an update on a playground in Hartstown Park, a residential area along the N3 in Mulhuddart. Residents have been asking for a playground in Hartstown and Huntstown for a long time, she said.
At the time of the motion, she was told that this new play audit was being prepared. And that it would determine what is needed, or not, at Hartstown Park. But it has been more than a year since then, and the audit isn’t done, she said.
“We still haven’t been given the presentation despite several requests,” she said at the meeting on 2 November. “I really hate doing this. It’s like déjà vu, it’s like Groundhog Day, but there’s nothing else I can do but repeat what I said last year.”
Rather than waiting any longer for the audit, Donnelly said she wanted to go ahead and push for the new playground at Hartstown Park.
The closest option for residents of the area is the Millennium Regional Park, which is too far for those living in Hartstown-Huntstown, said Donnelly. “It certainly isn’t a distance that many people would walk with small children.” Millennium Park is a little over one kilometre from Hartstown Road.
Tania Doyle, the independent councillor, agreed with Councillor Donnelly’s motion. “We’ve discussed this for a number of years now … We were told by the manager there was plans for a park in Hartstown Park.”
A playground in Hartstown has been on the agenda for years, said the meeting chair, Fianna Fáil Councillor Tom Kitt. He urged a faster decision on the matter.
“The child’s play area was always number one on the agenda … Coming up to the next local election in June and that would be on the agenda again for all the local councillors,” he said.
Kieran Dennison, a councillor for Fine Gael, said that they should wait for the play audit.
“I, with others, have been calling for an audit of the play facilities in the Dublin 15 area over the last number of years,” he said. “That’s about to come to fruition now.”
The audit will give guidance as to what sort of play facility should be put in the park and where in the park it should be put, Dennison said. “I’m willing to wait for that audit if it’s being presented soon,” he said.
Gemma Carr, a council official in the Parks and Green Infrastructure Division, said that an audit of the existing and proposed playgrounds had been presented to the Planning Strategic Transport and Infrastructure Development Strategic Policy Committee on 20 June.
The next stage is to compare the new map of what’s there and already planned, with details of demand from councillors at area committees, and from the public in general over the past five years, Carr said.
That’s due to be presented to area committees in December, she said. Hartstown Park is a great park, “and it is worthy of having a playground”, Carr said.
But the council should prioritise putting parks first where they are needed most, she said.
“As opposed to just people at every area committee saying, ‘I want one here,’” she said. “I urge you to wait till December.”
Donnelly said she wanted to proceed with her motion anyway, and the committee backed her.
Community facilities in Avondale
Community facilities that were supposed to be part of a housing project in Avondale need to be brought back, said Labour Party Councillor Mary McCamley.
It was during a discussion at the 2 November meeting of councillors for the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart area committee about disposing of the council land the housing project was built on to the Housing Association for Integrated Living.
McCamley said she’d no problem with the disposal. “The only thing I have a problem with is they’re talking about three community facilities,” she said.
“There are no community facilities in Avondale,” she said. “They were there when it was built first, and then they were taken for offices.”
The housing project in Avondale, proposed in 2008, was supposed to have 234 homes and three community facilities, she said.
But the three facilities have been taken over by Cooperative Housing Ireland, said McCamley.
Said McCamley, over the phone later: “This wasn’t part of the planning application. No one has ever questioned this.”
Marina Rennicks, an official in the council’s housing department, said at the meeting that the disposal of land is separate to the use of parts of the buildings.
“The operational end of it in regards to the units we can look into, and I can come back to you on that,” she said.
On the phone, McCamley said that Foróige, a youth development organisation, had been using the facilities. “But they were asked to leave.”
Children in the area need those facilities, she said. “There are a lot of children in the area who would want a place to go to in the evenings.”
Eoin Carroll, the director of policy and communications for Cooperative Housing Ireland, said that it has looked at the evolving needs of a community and felt that the community benefited from Cooperative Housing Ireland being there.
He didn’t elaborate on McCamley’s comments about Foróige, and which facilities it is using at Avondale.
The area committee noted the manager’s report on the disposal, and the matter was forwarded on to a meeting of the full council on 13 November, where councillors backed the disposal.