Donabate says NO to draft Local Area Plan

dublin | environment | press release Friday May 05, 2006 16:24 by Assistant Secretary - Donabate Parish Council info at donabateparishcouncil dot com

draft Donabate Local Area Plan / Strategic Environmental Assessment

The Draft LAP does not address SUSTAINABILITY !

There was NO PUBLIC PARTICIPATION !

It's more than likely ILLEGAL !!

Donabate and Portrane already suffer from A LEGACY OF BAD PLANNING !!

We already know about our problems and the lack of INFRASTRUCTURE in our........

overloaded public transport,
schools,
footpaths,
roads,
traffic congestion,
law and order,
anti-social behaviour,
youth facilities,
cuts in water supply,
raw sewerage spilling into the sea,
storm water measures
protection of the environment
protection our heritage

The LAP proposes in 10 years Donabate will increase by 5500 houses that's 16 500 people, nearly TRIPLE the population, making us one of the largest towns in Ireland !!

building 60m away from a sensitive nature reserve and damaging the environment damage to the habitats at the Rogerstown and Broadmeadow Estuaries is contrary to Irish and EU Law!

doing nothing to address the overdue needs of the people already living in Donabate & Portrane

if we already have problems, how will our children like the peninsula in 20 years time?
What legacy are we leaving to them ?

Why does Fingal County Council give developers the freedom to do exactly as they please ??

To the Planning Department,
Fingal County Council

Donabate Parish Council, by mandate of the Donabate and Portrane Community, most strongly object to the Draft Donabate Local Area Plan and the associated SEA on the grounds that Public Participation guidelines were not adhered to.
We challenge the legality of these documents based on current Irish Law and European Directives on Public Participation.
We attended one meeting for the LAP in November 2005, which was considered a charade by the majority of people at the meeting. No further contact was made with the community following the report from this meeting. We were unaware that an SEA was being carried out on us and references in the SEA document to public consultation are therefore untrue.
As a community we have been consistently denied the opportunity to participate in the plans for our
peninsula, despite our willingness and requests to be involved. This complaint spans a number of years and it also includes previous re-zoning and planning disasters; Variation 34 proposals, the 65,000 PPE Environmental Impact Study and the Giant 800,000 PPE sewerage treatment plant.
With regards the Draft Donabate LAP and SEA, it has been impossible to make a meaningful response in the short ‘holiday’ period of public viewing without explanation from Fingal County Council or participation from the outset.
Fingal County Council declined our invitation to present the LAP to the community on the 26th of March 2006 in the Donabate Portrane Community Centre and we therefore undertook to present the plan to the community ourselves. This we carried out without guidance from the FCC Planning Department and without funding, which should have been available to us to participate fully in the process.
We confirm that the Donabate Parish Council receives no public funding for this type of activity and we find it appalling that Fingal County Council, who have available funds, are not carrying out their duties to the community to allow proper participation, despite having afforded the developers of the lands noted in the LAP a number of meetings.
At the public meeting last week, the Community of Donabate and Portrane expressed their absolute outrage at the lack of any democratic process and the lack of participation.
Donabate Parish Council has attempted at every step of the way to act in a professional and responsible manner. We must warn FCC we cannot contain the frustrations of people living in our community. Desperate actions by people WILL be the direct consequence of the nonchalant attitudes of FCC Officials to carry out their statutory duties and we urge you to prevent this by listening to us for a change.
We lodge this complaint to the Fingal County Council Senior Executive Officer and copy our document to The Fingal County Manager, Director of the FCC Planning Department, FCC Transportation Department, FCC Parks Department, Fingal County Councillors, TD’s and MEP’s, An Taisce, The Department of the Environment and Local Government and the European Commission.
Without prejudice to our complaint regarding the legality of the documents, we append our list of objections to the Draft Donabate LAP and the SEA which do not properly address any of the 8 listed ‘Objectives of an LAP’ as outlined in the FCC draft LAP Document. We also enclose a copy of our suggestions for phasing development in Donabate, based on the areas zoned in the current development plan.

Yours faithfully,
The Secretary
Donabate Parish Council

The full document is here:
http://www.sitestogo.biz/stg/public/download.php?site=s...6.pdf