Council Briefs: Rat-running in Kimmage, preserving Kenilworth Square, and holding on to the Rathmines Post Office

Lack of traffic enforcement in Kimmage

The council should do more to get a handle on traffic cutting through small streets in neighbourhoods between Harold’s Cross Road and Lower Kimmage Road, councillors said at Monday’s meeting of their South East Area Committee at City Hall.

Discussion centred on a ban on right-turns from Aideen Avenue onto Lower Kimmage Road, which councillors said drivers completely ignore. But they also discussed rat-running and speeding through the neighbourhood more broadly.

“It is frustrating for all of us,”  senior executive engineer Colm Ennis said. “We have the likes of Aideen Avenue, where we have put in a lot of traffic-calming measures there and in other areas and we’re relying on the implementation or the guards to enforce those measures.”

Well, they’re not enforcing, councillors said, so maybe it’s time for a new plan.

“It’s just really sad that children living a few hundred metres away from a playground can’t access it by themselves because it’s through traffic they’re just speeding through teeny tiny little roads that are not designed for this and – please help,” said Labour Councillor Fiona Connelly.

Gardaí are under-resourced, and have low morale, said Social Democrats Councillor Eoin Hayes.

“So I think relying on the Gardaí to enforce a lot of these mechanisms isn’t going to work,” he said. “And I think we need to take the time to make design decisions that are going to make sure that these things are not happening and it’s made safe for people.”

The council has tried to do that at the junction where Aideen Avenue meets Lower Kimmage Road, said Senior Engineer Neil O’Donoghue.

“That turn off Aideen Avenue, it’s a very hard right-turn, it’s narrow, it has a raised table, it has 3.5 ton limits in place, it has ramps in place, like, again, it really is an enforcement issue,” he said.

A Garda spokesperson said on Tuesday did not respond directly to a query about councillors’ frustrations with the lack of enforcement of road-traffic laws by gardaí.

Maybe it’s time to take another route, rather than trying to get Gardaí to enforce, said Right to Change Councillor Pat Dunne.

“We should be embracing the technology that’s available and use it as a tool of enforcement,” he said. “To what extent has our traffic section looked at how they could use technology to come up with solutions?”

That’s really up to the guards as well, said Ennis, the senior executive engineer.

“And I think they are moving towards the use of technology,” he said. “For example, I think the Crumlin Road will have a new speed camera as part of that initiative in the coming months hopefully.”

The Garda spokesperson said the National Roads Safety Strategy 2021–2030 calls for the further development of camera-based enforcement by the Gardaí, “including at junctions and for the management of bus/ cycle lanes”.

“Separately in support of Road Safety An Garda Síochána announced the roll-out of three average speed cameras and nine static speed safety cameras which aim to be fully operational by the end of 2024,” he said.

“The locations of these cameras, including a ‘Static Safety Camera’ on the Crumlin Road in Dolphin’s Barn, were selected based on fatal and serious injury collision data from the last seven years and speed data, as well as feedback from stakeholders,” he said.

“Drivers detected by the average and static speed cameras will be automatically issued a fixed charge penalty notice,” he said.

At the meeting, Connelly, the Labour councillor, proposed and got support for a motion asking for an audit of Aideen Avenue/Neagh Road /Melvin Road and see how the road network can be improved to optimise safety for all road users.”

The reply she got from the council executive was that “A service request has been created to effect this action … The Councillor will be informed of the recommendation in due course.”

Effort to protect Kenilworth Square falters

The council should designate Kenilworth Square an Architectural Conservation Area and look at putting preservation orders on trees on the square, according to a motion from Green Party Councillor Carolyn Moore and Labour Councillor Fiona Connelly.

The Spiritan Congregation bought Kenilworth Square in 1947 for use as a sports grounds for St Mary’s College, according to the school. Now the school has proposed a redevelopment of the square.

This would involve, a website set up by the school says, turning the three existing pitches into two full-sized ones – one of them all-weather (with floodlights), the other grass. Also, “We will be removing eight lower-value trees to make room for the all-weather pitch, and planting 74 new trees in the square,” the website says.

The council has deemed some aspects of the project – reconfiguration of the existing pitches and installation of the all-weather surface – exempt from the need for planning permission, Moore said. But other aspects will need planning permission, she said.

There’s 87 protected structures on the square, so it should qualify for an Architectural Conservation Area, Moore said. And the trees should be protected too, she said.

“All other matters are in the remit of the planning authority once a proposal goes to planning, but we want to ensure the maximum protections are in place so that decisions are being made in that context,” she said.

In the end, though, there wasn’t enough agreement among councillors on the committee to push it through to the full council.

Fine Gael Councillor Patrick Kinsella said he fully supported the motion.

But both Right to Change Councillor Pat Dunne and Social Democrats Councillor Eoin Hayes said they’d be more interested in trying to bring the square back into public ownership.

Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey, chair of the committee, said that while he supported the objective “I think there still are questions and legal issues that probably need a bit more evaluation.”

In the end, at Lacey’s suggestion, the committee agreed to “note the report, for further report”.

Rathmines Post Office

The committee agreed a motion in April asking the council to rezone the Rathmines Post Office “to safeguard its use as a community asset” – what’s happened with that? asked Labour Councillor Fiona Connelly in a new motion at Monday’s meeting of the South East Area Committee.

An Post reportedly has plans to sell off the art deco building on Upper Rathmines Road. In her April motion, agreed by the committee at that time, Connelly proposed rezoning the land to Z15, to protect and provide for institutional and community uses.

Her party colleague, Councillor Dermot Lacey, said Monday that “There’s no community centre in Rathmines, there’s no local heritage centre, you know sitting around a pint for five minutes and you can think of twenty uses.”

Councillors don’t have the power to initiate a rezoning, council managers have to do that. But Acting Executive Manager Frank Lambe’s response Monday, was basically the same as his response in April.

The site is “bound on both sides of the street by a Z4 zoning”, he wrote. “Changing individual small parcels of land to other zoning categories within the village main street would result in a piecemeal approach to zoning policy for Rathmines.”

And rezoning the site, “would not guarantee the preservation of the use of the building for public purposes”.  A Z15 zoning allows, for example, “medical, restaurant, shop, training centre, public worship, primary care, residential institution and childcare” uses.

The council wrote on 10 September to both Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan, the Green Party TD, and Minister of State James Lawless, a Fianna Fáil TD, about the closure of the post office, Lambe wrote.

“No reply has been received to date,” he wrote. “Previous correspondence to the Minister Eamonn Ryan has also gone unanswered to date.”

At Monday’s meeting, Connelly said she was disappointed in Lambe’s response, and in the lack of response from Ryan and Lawless.

“I think we as public representatives need to do everything we can to maintain that post office in public ownership and public usage because Rathmines is really very short on public spaces,” she said.

Social Democrats Councillor Eoin Hayes said he wasn’t sure what the councillors could do next to try to achieve the goal. Lacey suggested that Connelly chair a meeting of councillors with an interest in the issue to talk about it.

“I’m more than happy to chair an informal meeting to plot and plan our next steps collaboratively,” Connelly said.