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A new town for Dublin

Wednesday, 06 February 2008

One of the largest ever mixed-use planning applications ever seen by a local authority has been submitted for a new town centre in Adamstown.
‘Adamstown Central’ will be located at the heart of a new urban district being constructed on a green field site between Lucan and Clondalkin and adjoining the main Dublin-Kildare railway line approximately 10 miles west of Dublin City Centre.
Leading property developers Castlethorn Construction have submitted a e1.2 billion planning application to South Dublin County Council for a new town centre at the heart of the Adamstown development.
At 154,000 square metres, the new town centre is one of the largest ever mixed-use planning applications lodged with a local authority in Dublin.

It will provide a full range of community, civic, residential, retail and commercial facilities for the town’s expected population of 30,000 by 2015.
Adamstown is expected to emerge equivalent in size to other major towns such as Drogheda and Dundalk within the next seven years.
It will also lead to the creation of over 2,500 new jobs within the town centre and its immediate environs.
The master plan for the town was created over a three-year period by a design team led by seven architectural practices supported by 55 professional consultancies.
Among the planned facilities are a primary healthcare centre, an inter-church place of worship, a leisure centre and swimming pool, a library, enterprise centre and several civic squares.
The town centre will also incorporate 60 retail units including restaurants, cafés and bars, an eight-screen cinema and 900 apartments.
According to a Castlethorn Construction spokesperson, the urban design master plan for the new town centre draws its influences from across Europe, some of them historical, including the intimate street patterns and public spaces of the 12th century French Bastides settlements.
“The design is comprised of a network of new public squares and numerous, intimately planned primary and secondary streets,” he said
“The new heart for Adamstown will provide a high quality contemporary built environment that will have its own unique and memorable ‘sense of place’.”
Sources say car parking will be entirely underground on one level facilitating a pedestrian-friendly, traffic free environment.
The 20-acre town centre will be located beside Adamstown train station and the town’s schools, all of which were opened in 2007.
In April of last year Taoiseach Bertie Ahern opened the train station which is used by the 500 residents who already live there.
Planning for Adamstown Central will be fast tracked under strategic development zone legislation and in theory work could start in around two months’ time, although in reality it will be later this year before Castlethorn Construction commences operations.
Adamstown has been designed from the beginning as a sustainable community and is very much a ‘green project’. The buildings in the new development have been designed to achieve in excess of a 40 per cent energy saving compared to current standards in building regulations.
The development’s community heating system will use 30 per cent renewable energy sources.
In the design and construction of the buildings a significant reduction in the amount of CO2 emissions has been achieved through design and specification.
Once built, the reduction in CO2 emissions is estimated to be about 1,750 tonnes per year - equivalent to the energy required to heat 1,000 homes.
During the construction stage it is estimated that Castlethorn will save another 7,300 tonnes of CO2 through the use of low-carbon concrete.

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