Council briefs: A new plan for Flemington, pushing for orchards, and more

Fingal councillors have agreed a long-awaited new local area plan (LAP) for Flemington, a townland on the northern outskirts of Balbriggan.

Residents and councillors alike had waited more than eight years for the council to prepare an LAP for the lands, which could hold as many as 650 homes.

The draft LAP was presented to the council by Patricia Cadogan, a senior planner in Fingal’s Planning and Strategic Infrastructure Division.

It emphasised that the delivery of a new neighbourhood on the 17.5 hectares of land off Flemington Lane would be supported by community facilities, open space and active travel measures, Cadogan said. “A community needs its facilities.”

That was the main ask in February at the ideas-gathering stage, with locals pointing to concerns about unsustainable communities, with homes built first and community spaces and services failing to follow.

At the meeting, Cadogan said that Balbriggan will also benefit from the Dart+ Coastal North Project. That project will extend the Dart north from Malahide to Drogheda via Balbriggan. The design was submitted to An Bord Pleanála in July.

“We’re rolling out significant active travel measures in the area as well, so it’s very important that we’re delivering housing in tandem with facilities,” Cadogan said.

Two planning applications on the Flemington land have been refused by An Bord Pleanála (ABP) before, she said.

Developers John and Cormac Smith made an appeal to ABP to build 73 dwellings on part of these lands in March 2018.

Another was for 74 houses, Cadogan said. “The board in these cases, in refusing permission, was cognisant of the ad hoc and piecemeal approach to the development that was being brought forward.”

It wouldn’t have delivered a planning-led approach to the provision of community facilities, she said.

Under the draft LAP, the height of the housing developments would vary between two and five storeys, and the phasing of their delivery as well as that of community facilities is key, Cadogan said.

Phase one of the LAP includes an active travel hub, a community park, community facilities, a sustainable drainage (SUDS) garden, a public plaza and a playground, according to a presentation shown to councillors.

The second phase would then include another SUDS garden, age-friendly accommodation and a community garden, according to the presentation.

Housing would be split evenly between the two phases, with each one seeing the construction of approximately 300 homes, Cadogan said.

Fine Gael Councillor Tom O’Leary, while welcoming the plan, said the phasing worried him, as he wanted to see the housing get provided as soon as possible. “I’m concerned that the prescriptive phasing plan in the LAP will inhibit the delivery of the actual plan,” he said.

Everyone would support the delivery of open spaces and play areas in advance, he said, “and delivering roads in advance, but the reality of delivering roads is normally houses have to be built as you move along, and the houses pay for the roads”.

That land is also under the ownership of five different owners, he said. “And if one of them delays for whatever reason, personal or otherwise, all the others are held up, because we’re insisting on 100 per cent delivery up in the first half of this development.”

Cadogan said the council has taken into account any impasse that may relate to individual landowners. “But in effect, we need to provide housing and we need to provide community facilities at the same time.”

Space for shops, a playground, and an active travel hub are things that all came out of public consultations, she said.

“We would argue that the best way forward to deliver those facilities and to deliver housing in tandem and to create cohesive communities at this location for this phasing to be adopted as part of LAP,” she said.

Councillors agreed to adopt the local area plan.

More public orchards

Fingal should plant fruit trees in their parks, Labour Councillor Mary McCamley proposed later at the monthly council meeting.

McCamley brought forward a motion asking the chief executive, AnnMarie Farrelly, to make provision for more orchards in council-owned open green spaces, so people could access indigenous heirloom fruit trees.

It was a very “wholesome” request, said the mayor, Labour Councillor Brian McDonagh.

Her motion hoped that by planting the fruit trees that it could support biodiversity, reduce CO2 levels and bring more colour to green open spaces with their blossoms. “You can see in other countries where the fruit trees are actually growing on the side of the road,” she said.

Planting orchards on public open spaces is included in the council’s biodiversity plan, Mary T. Daly, director of the Operations Department, said in a written report.

Any community group could request or nominate an area for a community orchard, and this would be assessed for suitability by the Area Operations Maintenance Team, she said.

The open spaces would need to be large enough to allow the trees to thrive, but they couldn’t be near the road, as this could cause maintenance issues, she said.

McCamley accepted that falling fruit could make the place dirty, she said. “But it wouldn’t do any harm in our parks and our local spaces that we have within housing estates, with of course, the permission of people around them.”

It would be a nice gesture that could help biodiversity, she said. “Great for the bees. Absolutely brilliant for the bees.”

Labour Councillor John Walsh said there were some precedents for her idea after three open orchards were planted in Castleknock.

This was part of an open orchard project between 2022 and 2023 by the local tidy towns group, and supported by the council’s Operations team, Walsh said. “They do provide just an example of what could be done.”

It would require management of the fruit trees for them to be productive, Councillor MacDonagh said. “There is an ongoing, then, commitment in trying to get an effort from people to ensure they are properly pruned every year, so you don’t end up them going wild.”

McCamley’s motion was agreed.

Clongriffin’s Dirty Old Tower

Last Wednesday, at a Howth-Malahide area committee, with only four of the seven local councillors in attendance, Green Party Councillor David Healy once again raised the matter of Clongriffin Dart station and its decrepit temporary access tower.

Healy asked in a motion, that the council’s chief executive take responsibility for maintaining the access tower, except for the lift.

That was because the National Transport Authority (NTA) has put out a tender for the provision of a new lift, Healy’s motion said.

A spokesperson for the NTA confirmed that it had tendered for the replacement and maintenance of the lift at the Dart station on 19 November.

This would require the removal of the existing, frequently out-of-order lift, within the existing access tower, with regular maintenance over a five-year period, the spokesperson said.

The expected term of the contract is three years, they said. “The agreement may be renewed annually, at the option of the Authority, up to a maximum of two years after the end of the third year.”

Matthew McAleese, the council’s director of services and senior parks and landscape officer, in his response to Healy’s request, said councillors, community representatives and members of the NTA met to discuss the new lift on 20 November.

They also discussed CCTV and proposed improvements to the public realm, he said.

The existing lift and stairwell are privately-owned infrastructure, as is the area around the tower, he said, “and any works will require the consent of the landowner”.

Healy said it was hard to understand McAleese’s report, because it suggested that the consent of the owner was somehow an issue.

The NTA, during the meeting, confirmed that it would change the design of the tower and improve its safety, while also providing 24-hour lift services, Healy said. “The NTA is taking on all that work.”

Meanwhile, Fingal had recently removed the barriers at the entrance to the bike area on the path leading into the tower from Myrtle Close, he said, “which has been a big improvement and is very welcome”.

What remains is the basic maintenance of the stairs and the ground area around this, he said. “It’s really a question of us taking a decision that we will match the NTA’s commitment to improving this access by taking on the very simple maintenance of the areas outside the lift.”

Healy got the support of Fianna Fáil Councillor Cathal Haughey, who said that while improvements are to be welcomed, fellow councillors like Joan Hopkins of the Social Democrats maintain that women don’t feel safe using it.

Independent Councillor Jimmy Guerin said he was worried about the motion. “Because taking responsibility for temporary lands not in our ownership could lead to, I dunno, a bad precedent.”

Healy’s motion fell with two councillors voting for it, and two against.