Home News Latest News Anger as Airfield plan resurfaces

Anger as Airfield plan resurfaces

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

Management at an urban farm in South Dublin have voiced their opposition to an attempt by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to reintroduce a proposal that could see the construction of a transport corridor through the estate. A specific local objective under Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council's new Draft Development Plan provides for a feasibility study for a public transport corridor linking the Sandyford Industrial Estate and Dundrum Town Centre. One of the options favoured by the council would be to run the corridor through a section of the 35-acre Airfield Estate in Dundrum. This would involve the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) of some of the land along the route. The council maintains that the proposed road could alleviate traffic congestion in the Sandyford Industrial Estate and the surrounding areas. As part of the creation of a new draft county development plan some months ago, councillors insisted that the local authority consider all routing options for the transport corridor. However, it is understood that council management is still considering the route that would run through Airfield. The road proposal was first mooted in 2006 but councillors unanimously rejected the plans, which opponents claimed would have compromised the setting of the urban estate. Last year, councillors also helped to protect land around Airfield by voting to close a loophole in their development plan to prevent residential development on open spaces. The move prevented developers Cicol Ltd from continuing with a plan to build housing on land known as Dudley's Field, which was formerly part of the Airfield Estate. Last week, the manager of Airfield, Kathy Purcell, said the transport corridor proposal would be “detrimental” to Dublin's only urban farm. “This proposal would encroach on the estate significantly,” she said. “We have a working farm here and we need all that land to maintain it.” “It would also interfere with the peace and tranquillity of the farm and would be detrimental to the oasis-like feel that is currently here. We also cultivated a new wetland recently at a significant cost to ourselves.” She added: “We were doing that to attract more birds and wildlife. All that would be gone if a road was to go through. Two years ago we also planted 2,000 native Irish trees and they would effectively be wiped out as well. That is significant in terms of the biodiversity in the area.” In her submission to the county council on the new road proposal, the chairperson of Friends of Airfield, Dr Susan Hood, urged the council to come up with an alternative proposal to alleviate traffic in the Sandyford area. “There has already been a wide-ranging study and public consultation with regard to the improvement of transport links to and from the Sandyford Estate, and it is now quite unnecessary to investigate a further variation of this problem,” she said. Dr Hood added: “The passion among local people in opposition to this (proposal) is even greater now because we rejected it before. And we have still the unanimity of all of the councillors who voted against it.” A spokeswoman for the county council said they would not comment on the matter but added that they would take all submissions into consideration before bringing a report back to councillors.