The High Court decided An Coimisiún Pleanála has to look again at the impact of one stretch of Blanchardstown to City Centre route, which runs by the Go service station on the Old Cabra Road.
Traffic zipped up and down the Old Cabra Road as a white van pulled into the Go petrol station on the outskirts of Stoneybatter on Monday evening.
There wasn’t any shop attached to the forecourt, which was covered by a red and white, vaguely Googie-style slanted canopy which glows at night with its bright “Las Vegas lighting”.
It’s a self-service station livened up by a few potted trees, and a pair of unoccupied kiosks which advertised Go’s energy and oil services.
A couple of buses leaving behind the city centre and bound for Ongar rumbled by under the blue, cloudy sky.
The Old Cabra Road forms part of the National Transport Authority’s (NTA's) planned bus corridor scheme, almost 11 kilometres long, linking Blanchardstown to the city centre
It is one of 12 core bus corridors that make up the BusConnects redesign of the city’s bus networks, and one of at least seven that have, to date, been affected by judicial review proceedings.
The goal of these corridors is to redesign the roads to clear the way for buses to run faster, more reliably, and more punctually – and while they are at it, to add better cycle lanes and footpaths.
All of which can involve rerouting, or reducing private car traffic. In the case of this bus corridor, the designs did that in a way that would mean fewer cars passing Go.
The operators of the petrol station, Lissan Coal Company Ltd, and site owner LCC Properties and Investments Ltd, challenged the scheme, arguing, among other things, that the planning process had not taken seriously enough the project's impact on their business.
In April, High Court judge David Holland ruled in the companies' favour on this point, quashing the planning approval. On 14 July, Holland issued his final orders on the case, sending the project back to An Coimisiún Pleanála and laying out in more detail what should happen next.
It’s a setback and it may slow down the project, said Green Party councillor Feljin Jose, the party's spokesperson on transport, last Tuesday.
But the commission can still approve the project again, even after taking more seriously in its proceedings the impacts on the petrol station, Jose said.
“It isn’t stopping [An Coimisiún Pleanála] from saying that’s something we’re gonna have to accept," he said. "That in itself isn’t a reason to reject it, because of the overwhelming positive impact of the proposal.”
It is still too early to state whether the court’s decision will affect the timeline for delivering the corridor, a spokesperson for the NTA said. “No decisions have been made on any redesign.”
An Bord Pleanála granted the NTA approval to start the redesign with some conditions on 21 June 2024.
The plan included, among many other features along the route, two bus gates on the Old Cabra Road. These would mean the only through traffic allowed would be buses and taxis.
Local access would still be allowed, so technically private cars could still get to the petrol station. But the steady flow of car traffic along the Navan Road onto Old Cabra Road (and vice versa) would basically end.
That August, Lissan Coal Company and LCC Properties and Investments launched a judicial review against the scheme, court records show.
The owners and operators of the unmanned petrol station had, in August 2022, submitted objections to An Bord Pleanála arguing that they would lose a majority of business as a consequence of the redesign and this had not been taken seriously enough in the process leading up to the scheme's planning approval.
A traffic impact report was prepared for the companies by Tent Engineering, a structural and civil engineering consultant, which said daily trade would be reduced from 1,727 passing cars to 138.
The companies called the works an “attack on private property rights” because they were not offered compensation, nor was the station considered for a compulsory purchase order, the ABP report says.
The ABP inspector’s report conceded that there would be a significant reduction in traffic, which would “undoubtedly” impact on the number of customers.
But, given that the scheme would be of gain to the wider community and it would improve overall levels of accessibility into the city, it was deemed acceptable, the report said. “The station can still be accessed and maintain operations albeit not as conveniently as at present.”
Lissan and LCC argued in their challenge that this was dramatically underplaying the scheme's impact on their business. And the judge, in his ruling in April, agreed.
If the bus gates are put in, "Broadly, all accept that, even though public access to the Filling Station by a circuitous route (Glenbeigh Road) will remain, the bus gates and traffic restrictions will in reality remove over 90% of the private motor traffic from the stretch of Old Cabra Road onto which the Filling Station fronts and so will remove over 90% of the passing trade on which its viability depends," he wrote.
"The Inspector’s report did a euphemistic and diminishing disservice to Lissan’s proper expectation that the expected ruination of their Filling Station business would be adequately conveyed by the Inspector to the Commission," he wrote.
This was a flaw in the process, the judge found. So he decided to quash the planning board's decision. Last month, he handed down his final orders, laying out what would happen as a result.
The commission’s decision to accept the inspector’s “euphemistic description of the effect” was “irrational and unfair,” it says.
The judge ordered that ABP’s decision be quashed "only as it authorises two Bus Gates on the Old Cabra Road" and sent it back to the commission to reconsider the impacts of the bus gates on the petrol station.
An NTA spokesperson said, last Tuesday that they note the decision to remit these two bus gates on the Old Cabra Road to ACP for reconsideration on their impacts on the station.
But, it is too early to say if this will impact on the timeline for delivering the corridors, as the reconsideration process is a matter for ACP, they said. “No decisions have been made on any redesign.”
“The NTA will support the Board's reconsideration process and remains committed to delivering the Blanchardstown to City Centre Core Bus Corridor,” they said.
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