Council Briefs: More waiting for pedestrian crossing in Clontarf, refurbishing St Anne’s Suzhou Gardens, and more

More waiting for a crossing on Mount Prospect Avenue

After years of pushing the council to install a pedestrian crossing on Mount Prospect Avenue in Clontarf, local councillors thought they were finally going to get one last year.

But that didn’t happen, and when it might is still unclear.

“We’ve waited eight years for this pedestrian crossing and now we have to wait again to see if we can get funding for it,” said Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney, at the March meeting of the council’s North Central Area Committee.

“It gets incredibly frustrating when you feel that something that has been fought for for years, it’s finally agreed, and then the rug is pulled from under it,” said Social Democrats Councillor Catherine Stocker.

“It is frustrating,” said Fianna Fáill Councillor Deirdre Heney, who asked the committee’s chair, Fianna Fáil Councillor Daryl Barron, to write to the chief executive about the issue – which he agreed to do.

Mount Prospect Avenue lasts about 2km, with pedestrian crossings at either end. But that’s a long way around if you want to cross safely in the middle, so residents and councillors have been pushing for another crossing for years.

In 2021, Cooney, the Green Party councillor, said she wanted a zebra crossing there. She submitted a motion to the council’s transport committee saying zebra crossings should be used on residential roads to aid crossing in 30km zones, especially on school routes.

In response, Antonia Martin, a Dublin City Council engagement officer for active travel, had said that the council was not putting in new zebra crossings, after observations and representations to its transportation department.

So the process trundled forward towards putting in a full signalised crossing. Last year, the committee was informed that €300,000 in funding had been allocated to install a full pedestrian crossing on the site, said Cooney, the Green Party councillor. The plan was it would be installed in July 2024.

However, in the meantime, the council was working through a process of moving to installing more, cheaper zebra crossings, rather than more expensive signalled crossings as had been planned for Mount Prospect Avenue.

In February 2024, the Department of Transportation issued new guidance around the use of zebra crossings to allow the use of zebra crossings without flashing beacons, making them even cheaper to install.

A report to councillors in February 2025 on all this identified Mount Prospect Avenue as one of six locations for new zebra crossings. But that’s subject to funding, the report says.

“Where did the €300,000 go? Did it get reallocated?” asked Cooney, the Green Party councillor. “We have done so much work on this; it is so frustrating. I feel like going out and just painting one myself.”

At the meeting, council engineer Will Mangan said he would try to find out answers for her.

On Thursday, Cooney shared a follow-up report she said she’d received from the council about the issue.

It says works on crossings at several locations, including “Mount Prospect Road/Mount Prospect Park” are “likely to be completed during Q3 or by early Q4” of this year.

Refurbishing the Suzhou Chinese Gardens in St Anne’s Park

Renovations of the Suzhou Chinese Gardens in St Anne’s Park are well along and the council is starting to plan a launch of the revamped garden, said Fergus O’Carroll, a senior executive parks superintendent with Dublin City Council.

The garden was gifted to Ireland by the People’s Republic of China in 2012 for the Bloom festival that year. After the festival, it was moved to its current home, nestled into the meandering sprawl of St Anne’s Park.

However, much of the original installation was “built out of tissue paper and plywood” and was not intended to last, O’Carroll said at the March meeting of the council’s North Central Area Committee.

So Dublin City Council called on the Suzhou Municipal Garden and Landscape  Administration Bureau in China, which originally designed the attraction, for help with the upgrade work.

“The original designer, he came over and assessed it and did a whole works list and they sent over two containers of materials and four craftsmen,” O’Carroll said.

“We had two carpenters who replaced all the plywood, the purple wood and all clay tiles. There are now proper ceramic tiles. Now, unfortunately we had to take out a lot of the planting to allow them access,” he said.

The paving was another feature that was not meant to endure the Irish seasons.

“Now we’re going tediously lifting up every single stone and replacing it with slate. That work is ongoing at the moment. It should be finished by April,” he said.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney asked if “we had to pay for the Chinese to come over?”

“I think we paid 50/50,” O’Carroll said. “I can’t remember the numbers, but they contributed as well.”

O’Carroll told the committee that they hope to have a formal launch of the garden, as well as for the park’s Wintergarden, which is within the Red Stables in St Anne’s Park.

“We never had a formal launch of the Wintergarden and the lovely tiles that we found and got conserved because it all happened during Covid,” O’Carroll said. “So, it would be nice to marry it in with the garden at some form of event.”

The tiles were originally a part of the Herculean House, the Guinness family’s summerhouse, which mimicked ancient Roman architecture, according to a council pamphlet.

The hand-painted square floor tiles, featuring Grecian motifs, were designed to resemble smaller mosaic tiles, it says. They are now on display in the Wintergarden.

Disappointment for Erin’s Isle

There was disappointment for Erin’s Isle GAA Club at the March meeting of the council’s North West Area Committee.

The Dublin 11 club have been pushing for eight years for another all-weather facility to help accommodate their teams in the winter.

Erin’s Isle has five grass pitches, a small all-weather pitch, a clubhouse and a bar.

But with 2,000 members on 76 teams, facilitating training in winter gets very complicated, chairperson Paul Campbell has said.

At the meeting in March, project manager David Weldon gave the committee a general update on the Luas Green Line extension to Finglas.

After which, Councillor Keith Connolly, of Fianna Fáil, asked about the potential to include the building of a long-awaited all-weather pitch for the club in the plan.

Nope, said Weldon, the project manager, said. “We appreciate the huge work that Erin’s Isle are doing within the community,” he said.

But “A main issue there is the brent geese, a protected species,” Weldon said. “Over 60 percent of Bull Island’s population have been monitored feeding in that area during the daytime and they’re protected under law so unfortunately, we can’t do anything as part of Luas Finglas in terms of an all-weather facility.”

Brent geese moving inland to find food has increasingly been affecting plans for development, all-weather pitches, and all manner of things.

On Monday, Campbell said he was disappointed by the latest decision. “This is the first I’ve heard that that answer was given at the last committee meeting,” he said.

“I put in a submission in 2017 for an all-weather pitch outside our gate,” Campbell said. “Then they were pointing us down to Tolka Valley, which was fine.”

“That process was about three or four years long,” he said. “We were told over consecutive years it was in the DCC budget to put it there.”

Campbell says the club continues to grow and needs more space, with over 3,000 members now. “All the anti-social stuff going on in Dublin 11 and the lack of investment is startling,” he said.

Campbell said the Luas was asking Erin’s Isle for help. “We’re hosting a jobs fair in the club tomorrow and we were asked … could we provide a big tele so they could show a video about the new Luas plan at the fair,” he said.

“So, they’re happy enough to ask us to give them a dig out on something but it would be nice to have that two-way conversation,” he said.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.