Judicial review launched over Dirty Old Tower that provides access to Clongriffin train station

Friends of the Irish Environment has started proceedings for a judicial review of a decision by Fingal County Council allowing a developer to build more homes in Baldoyle before it puts in better access to the Dart station.

Residents of Baldoyle have been using a temporary access tower to get into Clongriffin Dart station for around 12 years.

The structure, residents say, is poorly designed and a magnet for anti-social behaviour. The lift is dirty and intermittently out of order, and the station is shuttered between midnight and 6am.

There are new homes being built in the area. But the grotty access route remains the same.

Developer Shoreline Partnership bought the lands in October 2019 and has planning permission to build 800-plus homes, together with a new village square and access route to the train station.

As of October last year, it had already built 117 homes. Council planners have said it can proceed with more and push back delivering the transport infrastructure and a public square.

Friends of the Irish Environment, an environmental charity, is arguing that Fingal County Council erred by allowing the developer to change the phasing laid out in its planning application, without applying to amend the permission.

Fingal County Council planners accepted the new phasing after Shoreline Partnership submitted a proposed compliance submission in October last year.

Friends of the Irish Environment is bringing a judicial review against the council seeking to quash the order it made accepting that compliance submission.

“It’s an enormous problem, the entire basis of the zoning in the area was about the provision of a new train station access,” says Green Party Councillor David Healy.

Shoreline Partnership didn’t respond to an email query asking why the train station improvements cannot be done in the next  phase of development, and to respond to the concern that the phases cannot be changed by means of a compliance submission.

A Fingal County Council spokesperson says: “As the matters are sub-judice, it would not be appropriate for the Council to comment.”

What’s the problem

There’s no station or platform on the eastern, Baldoyle side of the train tracks. Instead, there’s a rectangular steel tower with an elevator and stairs inside.

These lead up to the station’s entrance, which is located on a bridge above the tracks and platforms.

While it was supposed to be temporary, this strange access tower has been in place for more than a dozen years now.

Residents in Baldoyle rely on the tower to get to the station.

Samatha O’Flanagan, of the Myrtle-The Coast Residents Association, says that the temporary access “cage” is so poorly designed that it allows for increased anti-social behaviour. “The whole design is not fit for purpose.”

Some residents have been victims of violence, including in daylight hours, she says. “At the minute the stairwell is a hive of anti-social behaviour.”

A properly designed route would have open access and better visibility and would be much safer. Residents can’t wait another 10 years, says O’Flanagan.

A change to the original plans

In its planning application in 2017 the developer submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR) that said works on a village centre, Stapolin Square, and access to the station would be done in phase 2.

The council’s local area plan called for the public works to be delivered before the first 90 homes were built – although that plan has now lapsed.

In 2019, council planners rejected the developer’s proposal for phasing, saying it didn’t match the phasing laid out in a local area plan.

That, Healy says, makes it difficult to understand why the council has accepted the change last October, as the proposal is similar.

Condition 17 in the planning permission stipulates that the development must be delivered in the phases as outlined.

“The development shall be carried out on a phased basis in accordance with the proposals submitted with the application,” it says.

The planning condition remains in force for the lifetime of the planning permission, said Healy. That the local area plan has expired isn’t relevant, he said.

“They came in with a proposal for three phases and the train station access was in phase 3 and the council rejected that,” says Healy.

“They’ve come back with effectively the same proposal except, instead of calling it phase 3 they’re calling it phase 2b, and the council has accepted that,” he said.

The planning permission will expire in two years, he says. “So it’s allowing them to go ahead with more development and push the train station out to goodness knows when.”

Funding for new access

Why the developer hasn’t pressed ahead with building the new access isn’t clear.

The Department of Housing had allocated €2 million in funding for a new ramp to the train station as part of its Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) scheme in 2017.

In December 2021, a Department of Housing official asked Fingal if it was spending money meant for the ramp on other LIHAF works in the development. “Will the Clongriffin ramp works be delivered?” he asks.

The documents don’t contain the answers. But a council official said that “it would appear on the basis of the permissions submitted to date that the ramp cannot be delivered as a stand-alone piece of infrastructure”.

In mid-2023, a council official told the department officials that “The developer has indicated their commitment to the delivery of a permanent purpose-built access ramp to the train station as a high priority for the development of Baldoyle and the wider area.”

Delays

Friends of the Irish Environment says in a document submitted for its judicial review, that the council is allowing the developer to build a large number of homes without providing public services.

“In simple terms it allows the Developer to build all the residential development in Phases I and II and leave all public services (other than the attenuation pond), including Stapolin Square and its access to Clongriffin Train Station, commercial units and the creche to Phase III,” it says.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Cathal Haughey says he is in support of the judicial review. “There is a good rationale as all other avenues have been exhausted,” he says. “The issue is not getting solved by Fingal Council,”

He was surprised and disappointed when the council failed to bring a planning enforcement action against the developer, he says.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) should take over management of the access to the train station, he says.

The NTA has outlined its plans to make some improvements to the temporary access route, but that won’t be enough to make female passengers feel safe using the route, says Haughey.

Both Haughey and Healy say they are aware that the judicial review will hold up homes being built, but they say this housing has already been delayed, as the original planning permission was granted seven and a half years ago.