Years since Rathborne rose up, there are still poles with no traffic lights

On Monday, Anna Lalor meets her son James outside Pelletstown Educate Together National School and together they walk homewards.

It’s just past 2pm, the sun is high in the sky and Anna Lalor wears sunglasses. James, quietly by her side, is carrying a backpack.

They amble along the path through the grassy expanse of Rathborne Vale Park, along the footpath next to Rathborne Vale, to where it ends at Royal Canal Crescent.

Here, they stop. Royal Canal Crescent is a long two-lane through-road, and drivers of cars and trucks move along it at a pretty good clip – sometimes faster than they should.

Their usual route takes them across it, but the crossing is more dangerous than it should be, more dangerous than it needs to be, says Anna Lalor.

The housing estates in this area were built by the developers Castlethorn and Ballymore. So these roads are privately owned, rather than council-owned.

The developer of this bit, Castlethorn, has put in a sparse forest of poles around this intersection, ready for traffic lights for a pedestrian crossing. But no lights.

And the council has said it can’t put in a pedestrian crossing, or station a lollypop person, on a private road.

They’ve got to wait until the developer hands the streets, lighting, drainage and all the rest of the public realm over to the council in a process called “taking-in-charge”.

This all points to a larger issue, says Declan Meenagh, who until last month’s election was a Labour councillor representing the area.

The plan to develop more, denser housing in Dublin city is, mostly, to have private developers build it, and then for the council take the new areas in charge, Meenagh says.

But if that’s the plan, the process needs to be improved, because it’s not working well, he says.

“Look at this, look at the experience of people living in places like this, and it’s just not good enough,” he says.

No timeline

In this sliver of Dublin city, south of Tolka Valley Park and north of the Royal Canal greenway, between the Ashtown train station to the west and Ratoath Road to the east, live nearly 6,000 people, according to 2022 census data.

Some of the estates in this Ashtown and Pelletstown area have been completed for many years, says Anna Lalor, who says she’s lived there since 2007.

The area right around the intersection without the pedestrian crossing has been complete for more than a decade, Lalor says.

Yet the developers haven’t handed over the streets, sewers, water mains, lighting, greenspaces and all the rest to the council – and there’s no timeline for them to do that.

There doesn’t have to be.

When an estate is completed, the developer can apply to the local authority to have it taken in charge, according to a guide from the Office of the Planning Regulator.

“If the local authority is satisfied that the development has been completed in compliance with the conditions of the planning permission and the local authority’s technical requirements, then it is required to take control of the operation, maintenance and upkeep,” the guide says.

But there’s nothing that says how soon after completion the developer has to make this formal request, or how quickly the process must be completed after that.

Even after the request from the developers, the process can involve years of back and forth between the developer and the road maintenance, public lighting, parks, drainage and traffic departments, for example.

“There’s no real right to have your area taken in charge,” says Meenagh, the former Labour councillor.

Meanwhile, Anna Lalor and her son regularly have to navigate their route without that pedestrian crossing – or a school traffic warden.

“Kids’ safety here, because we’re not taken in charge, is subsidiary to kids safety elsewhere,” she said. “We pay local property tax like everyone else.”

“Somebody could do something, it’s just nobody is willing to go outside the bureaucratic process,” she said.

Lack of progress and information

Colm O’Rourke, a local Fine Gael councillor, has been asking about the taking-in-charge process for this area for years.

In February, he proposed a motion at the council’s Central Area Committee, asking council managers for detailed information on the process.

The committee backed his motion. But the council has not provided him with a report answering his questions, O’Rourke said Tuesday.

At this month’s full council meeting, in response to a query from Green Party Councillor Feljin Jose, council managers provided a brief update on the issue.

Ballymore submitted a request for the council to take in charge Royal Canal Bank, Pelletstown, in November 2021, the update says.

“The service department’s response outlined works that were required to be carried out prior to the area being taken in charge,” it says. “Engagement between Dublin City Council is ongoing to resolve the outstanding issues prior to the development being taken in charge.”

Castlethorn submitted a request for the council to take in charge the Rathborne estate in May 2023.

“The service department’s responses outlined works that were required to be carried out prior to the area being taken in charge. No response has been received to date,” the update says.

Says O’Rourke, the Fine Gael councillor: “The developers are saying DCC need to do more, DCC are saying the developers need to do more.”

Anna Lalor says she wants to get the developers and council managers all in one room so it’s harder for them to shift blame and responsibility to each other.

“But there isn’t really any forum for engagement,” she says.

What’s next?

There’s no reason Castlethorn couldn’t simply put in traffic lights and a pedestrian crossing at the intersection Lalor and other parents are concerned about, says Meenagh, the former Labour councillor.

“The developer is choosing not to,” he said.

Castlethorn hasn’t responded to queries sent 5 July asking why the taking-in-charge process is taking so long, whether they would put in a pedestrian crossing in the meantime, and whether they would provide a lollypop person too.

Aside from the issue of this being a private road at the moment, not taken in charge, this is a complex intersection, where three roads intersect, and the main one bends out of sight in each direction.

There are no traffic lights and there’s no pedestrian crossing. It would be hazardous for a school traffic warden to stand out there and stop the cars, O’Rourke says.

Some parents have considered taking it in turns to put on hi-vis and stand in the road with a big stop sign to protect kids crossing, Lalor says.

But these same safety issues give them pause, and they haven’t made a concerted push to organise themselves to set this up, she says.

Just next door to this area, further east over Ratoath Road, the council is planning more redevelopment.

It’s drawing up the Ballyboggan Local Area Plan (LAP) for the Dublin Industrial Estate and surrounding area.

When developers build new homes and streets and parks and footpaths and drainage and everything over there, and people move in, will the same issues come up? asks Meenagh, the former Labour councillor.

“Are they going to have the same experience? Are they going to have to wait 30 years to be taken in charge?” he asks.

The laws and regulations and procedures that govern this process, “I don’t know if they’re fit for purpose,” Meenagh says.