Wicklow Co. Co. turns blind eye to illegal landfill in Bray

wicklow | environment | news report Saturday April 22, 2006 15:53 by Dargle Valley Residents

Dump nightmare for Bray homeowners

The Dargle Valley area of Bray is home to hundreds of high value homes, prices influenced by the spectacular backdrop of the famous Sugar Loaf mountains and views of the sparkling Dargle River. It is also home to the illegal dump on Love Lane. Of landfill proportions, this dump is being ignored by Wicklow CC officials in the grand tradition ignoring the start up of illegal landfill in the county at times when the local authority is not in a position to provide a service itself. Coolnamadra, Whitestown and Blessington all carry allegations that Wicklow CC in someway supported their existence in the early days of their lives because there was no other home for the waste, commercial waste having been banned at their own official landfills at that time. The same could be said today in Love Lane.

Thousands of tonnes of waste are dumped in the Bray Love Lane landfill and dumping continues on a daily basis. Fires burn nightly billowing dioxin laden smoke, from the burning of plastics, across the town of Bray. Children from the nearby Fassaroe Estate play in the ashes and rubbish and filth, at risk of catching Wiels Disease from the rats who play there too. It is like a scene from the Third World, not the modern Celtic Tigerland.

But the local authority managed Fassaroe Estate has no waste collection system and Wicklow Co Co is not living up to its obligation to “provide or arrange for the provision” of one as set down in the 1996 Waste Management Act. So the Council turns a blind eye to the existence of a big illegal landfill on private lands adjoining the housing estate, which is becoming more commercial by the day, with loads of household and business waste arriving from a much wider area. This is another Whitestown, Roadstone, Coolnamadra in the middle of Bray town and it seems that Wicklow CC will continue to conveniently ignore it until the EPA is forced to step in and prosecute the landowner.

And the landowner is another issue in this sorry tale. The lands were recently auctioned at a guide price of six million euro. Wicklow CC as we know, does not challenge its wealthy residents very often. The lands straddle the administrative boundaries of Wicklow CC, Bray UDC and DLRCC. However the adjacent public housing estate and homes most affected by this outrage are in Co. Wicklow.

But the tide of public outrage is rising. Residents in the Dargle Valley have come together to protest at this Government facilitated environmental crime. They are clear in what they want:

1. Love lane to be closed off to vehicular traffic
2. The dump to be cleaned up and the landowner prosecuted
3. A waste collection service to be arranged for the County Council estate.
4. A fence to be erected between the Council estate and the illegal dump lands to prevent access by children to this unsafe area.

It is a sad fact of modern Ireland that our Governments never plan for the future or learn from the past.