Councillors tease out details of proposed playground at Laurel Lodge in Castleknock

Fingal County Council expects in October to ask people for feedback on its draft plans for a playground on Laurel Lodge Green in Castleknock.

Designs show a woodland-themed play area, about 400sqm. It would have six bits of play equipment for kids between 6 and 12 years old, said Mark Finnegan, a council official, at an area committee meeting earlier this month.

Locals and local councillors had been asking for one, he said. “The play audit also identified a local gap in play provision.”

More details about that audit will be presented at a future area committee meeting, said a written response from Kevin Halpenny, senior parks and landscape officer, at the same meeting.

Councillors at the meeting largely welcomed the plans for the Laurel Lodge play space, which they noted was born of a long local campaign.

But they had a few lingering concerns around whether the planned spot within the green was quite right, and whether the new playground would attract loads of people to swing by and park up in their cars.

Is it in the right place?

Several councillors said it was tricky to work out from Finnegan’s presentation exactly where the council planned to put the playground.

An image showed it set back a bit from Parklands, on the southside of a strip of trees.

Green Party Councillor Pamela Conroy said she understands why it is going on Laurel Lodge Green. But not the exact site, she said.

It didn’t look like it would be visible from the main road, meaning less passive observation, she said. “It would be good to know the reason.”

John Walsh, a Labour Party councillor, said he supported the playground. But also asked whether the council had considered moving it to the other side of the trees.

There would be more eyes on it from Castleknock Road and the trainline, he said. “There’s plenty of space for it the other side of the playground.”

Said Fianna Fáil Councillor Howard Mahony: “It is not totally welcomed by the community because of the location, I think it would be fair to say.”

That the council’s presentation said the site would be good for passive surveillance suggested to him that it was going to attract anti-social behaviour, he said. “How are we going to kind of factor that in?”

Finnegan, the council official, said the area they have put it in provides a balance between passive observation and a level of cover from other areas of park. “Where there might be other uses, more recreational areas as well.”

He wouldn’t agree that there’ll be anti-social behaviour off the bat, he said, but they can monitor that.

The playground needs to go in a sunny spot and that was key, he says. “You don’t want to locate a playground in a frost pocket.”

Getting there

Mahony, the Fianna Fail councillor, was the first to raise concerns about parking, asking about what was planned.

The plan is for bicycle parking, said Finnegan.

“Well, that’s not, that ain’t gonna happen,” said Mahony.

People are going to want to drive to it, he said. “Ninety percent of people that are going to that will be bringing their kids because there is such a shortage of playgrounds in Castleknock.”

Others asked if where it was going to be put would tempt people to drive and park on Parklands, a spacious road.

“Which will cause significant concern understandably from local residents,” said Walsh, the Labour Party councillor.

Sinn Féin Councillor Natalie Treacy said she knows it’s been a long campaign, but any objections she has had from residents have been from the Parklands area.

“If we’re going to put that playground beside there, we’re going to come up with a lot of objections with the residents that live there,” she said.

Conroy, the Green Party councillor, said she was one of the local community lobbying for the playground for years. “The reason why we wanted it is because we don’t want to drive to playgrounds anymore.”

“So I welcome the bicycle parking and I don’t think 90 percent of the users are going to be driving to it to be honest,” she said.

On the phone later, Conroy said that it had been a long community campaign of asking repeatedly since 2018 for a playground at Laurel Lodge. Campaigners ran a petition that got more than 700 signatures, she said.

The council’s operations department did a survey of residents around Laurel Lodge at one point, asking about transport, she said, and it showed that the vast majority of people would walk and cycle to the new playground.

At the meeting, Finnegan, the council official, said: “It won’t be a destination playground. That’s why there is no car parking proposed.”

The council plans to publish the plans and go out to public consultation around 12 October, he said.