In Coolmine, residents want more lights and CCTV to ward off anti-social behaviour on green and playground

The green outside the Windmill apartment complex was pock-marked with black spots last Monday.

They were the remains of at least nine bonfires. Some were filled with charred litter. One surrounded the remains of a thin tree stump.

Right beside the burned debris, by a tarmac footpath running along the Royal Canal from the four apartment blocks to the Coolmine train station, somebody had knocked a bench over.

The estate’s outdoor gym machines were covered in graffiti tags. So too was the playground – with sexually explicit messages, and slogans like “Coolmine Says No”.

A sign on the fencing around the playground’s perimeter was scribbled out and replaced with a scrawled message: “No rules, it’s not school.”

The vandalism on the green and at the playground has been a problem for months now, says Deirdre Power, a resident of the neighbouring St Mochta’s estate.

It’s trees being broken, Power says. It’s waste from bins being tipped over and set alight, she says. “The pile of rubbish, that’s been there since Halloween.”

One of the troubles is there isn’t much lighting around this greenway which passes right by Windmill, nor is there CCTV, Power says.

“I would have used that greenway to go to the train station. Or to walk my dog. But I’ve just stopped using it. I avoid it,” she says.

The open area and playground are the responsibility of “the developer”, a council spokesperson said last Tuesday, and were built by the company along with the 211 apartments of the Windmill complex.

The current owner of the apartments is the real estate management company Urbeo, which bought the four blocks from developer Kimpton Vale Ltd in 2021.

Fingal County Council is pursuing taking the green and playground in charge, the spokesperson said. That would make them a council park and playground, which it would be responsible for maintaining.

But, there are a number of outstanding issues that the developer needs to address before that can occur, the council spokesperson said.

The developer needs to re-seed the grass damaged by fire, get rid of the graffiti and upgrade the playground, Labour Councillor John Walsh said. “That is so that everything will be up to standard for when the land will be handed over.”

“The developer has committed to remediating all the outstanding works in both the playground and the park,” he said.

Neither Kimpton Vale Ltd, the complex’s developer, nor Urbeo replied when asked about what work they would need to carry out before the council could take over the ownership of the green.

Enforcement issue

In October 2005, Kimpton Vale was given the go-ahead by the council to build an apartment complex on the site.

Over the course of the next 10 years, the developer sought various extensions and variations to the planning permission, proposing alterations to parking arrangements, as well as the blocks’ heights and locations.

Finally, in December 2019, it applied to An Bord Pleanála to build four blocks of apartments, consisting of 211 flats.

The board approved Kimpton’s revised proposal in 2020, and according to an inspector’s report, the plan was for Fingal County Council to eventually take charge of the greenway.

Kimpton sold the apartments in late 2021 to real estate management company Urbeo for €73 million, according to Knight Frank estate agents.

But the open space just to the south of the complex is currently the developer’s responsibility, a council spokesperson said last Tuesday. “The council is pursuing the taking in charge of the open space and play facilities.”

However, there are a number of outstanding issues which the developer is required to address in line with its planning permission, they said. “Once the taking in charge process has been completed, the Council will be in a position to liaise further with the local community in relation to their concerns.”

In August, the council issued a planning enforcement notice to Kimpton Vale, the council spokesperson said. Basically, there’s a bin shed where there should be a bike shed.

“It shouldn’t be a bin shed. But it always has been. The enforcement order was issued but nothing was done,” says Deirdre Power.

Access

The anti-social problems began to develop around the start of 2024, says Joe O’Draoi, also a resident in St Mochtas.

“It started off with a group of local youths, and they started causing trouble,” Joe O’Draoi says. “They smashed up CCTV cameras. They set a skip on fire.”

It morphed into a bigger issue, he says. “It’s gotten a lot worse. Especially before Halloween, there’s been about 10 fires.”

Deirdre Power feels bad for the Windmill residents and the blight of vandalism that has spoiled their playground and greenway, she says.

As a resident in the neighbouring St. Mochta’s estate, her worry is that this will spread into their area. “They can access us through that area from Sheepmore Lane.”

Sheepmore Lane connects Windmill with the Dart Station in the south-eastern part of the land, while to the north of the complex, there is an additional access point to St. Mochta’s.

As the situation has worsened, Power and other St Mochta’s residents want the northern access locked off, she says. “They use our estate as a rat run, and on the way they damage cars.”

That access point is where the bin shed, which is supposed to be a bike shed, is situated, O’Draoi said. “If the gate was closed, it would be a big help.”

That gate needs to be closed off, says Walsh, the Labour councillor. “I’m not generally in favour of closing rights-of-way. But in this case, the access has become a sort of highway for criminality, a kind of escape route.”

Gardaí have been notified, and are aware of the situation, Walsh said. “They are making efforts to address it.”

There needs to be more lighting and CCTV too in the area, O’Draoi says.

A council spokesperson said it currently has no plan to install more CCTV or to alter the approved public lighting in the development.