[Article] Legal action against M30 at Tara planned

Victor

Of course, when the say M30, they mean M3.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0908/tara.html

Legal action against M30 at Tara planned
08 September 2004 22:10

Campaigners have pledged to take legal action against the part of the proposed M30 motorway which will go near the Hill of Tara.

Vincent Salafia, who has been involved in the Carrickmines battle, says they are preparing legal documents to launch a High Court challenge in the very near future.

He says they are not against the motorway itself, but just the section that will go through the Tara / Skryne Valley area.

The Chairman of Meath County Council, Cllr Tommy Reilly, has branded those opposed to the route a disgrace. He claims that many families are suffering because they spend hours commuting from Meath to Dublin and the motorway would help them.

He also says a company planning on setting up in Navan withdrew when their executives saw the traffic problems on the road to Dublin. The National Roads Authority said they are fully committed to the project.

28 archaeological sites have been discovered between Dunshaughlin and Navan. It is up to the Minister for the Environment to decide what should happen to them, although the NRA said they do not believe any of them are of major significance.

Four consortia have been chosen to take part in the competition to build the road: Eurolink, Celtic Roads, Direct Route and Icon.

The preferred bidder will be announced in September of next year with work on the 60km project starting before the end of 2005.

So far Meath County Council have made 145 offers to landowners worth over €30m to purchase property along the route.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/3952583?view=Eircomnet

28 sites of archaeological interest found on M3 route
From:The Irish Independent
Wednesday, 8th September, 2004

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered 28 new sites in the Tara-Skryne valley in Co Meath where the proposed M3 motorway is to be routed, the National Roads Authority confirmed last night.

Among the more significant finds along the 15-kilometre stretch between Dunshaughlin and Navan are three large enclosed settlement sites or medieval farm houses, four prehistoric burial sites and one Bronze Age house.

Other archaeological discoveries include a medieval house and field system, two pit kilns and several prehistoric burnt mounds.

The foundations of five early modern houses, including a post office and a cottage dating from the early 19th century, were also uncovered.

A geophysical survey carried out in 2000 had identified a number of sites of archaeological significance in the area, but archaeologists commissioned by Meath County Council at the behest of the National Roads Authority have now discovered 28 more.

Mary Deevy, chief archaeologist on the project, said last night: "We hope very soon to get a direction from the Environment Minister to excavate the sites," she said.

Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent

jank

Maybe this time they can move the route in advance as everyone knows how important the hill of tara is from an archeolgoical point of view

Otherwise it will go on forever and waste tax payers money

Mayshine

In all honesty, do normal people really care all that much about all these sites that are discovered.

So they found a brick remaing to some old house. Fair enough if it is fully erect building or something, but finding a brick and fork and a silver coin in the ground that people used 1000 years ago is not really big deal is it.

Or is it?

Just wondering. Everyone talk about it but in reality do people actually care about this stuff??

jank

Mayshine wrote:

In all honesty, do normal people really care all that much about all these sites that are discovered.

So they found a brick remaing to some old house. Fair enough if it is fully erect building or something, but finding a brick and fork and a silver coin in the ground that people used 1000 years ago is not really big deal is it.

Or is it?

Just wondering. Everyone talk about it but in reality do people actually care about this stuff??

Well how much is the tourism industry worth to us every year
The number is in the billions isnt it, well half of that is directly related to excavated sites like those (newgrange, various caves, things found in museum's etc etc!)

So yea it is very important and that what most "normal" people dont understand, destroying these sites cost us our past and monkey making oppertunites in the future, as regards tourism.

Most "normal" people just jump on the bandwagon and critise anything that may seem anti roads or transport or really anto anything

You should have seen the meath county counciller last night on TV. What an ignorant fecker. All he kept saying was that "these people should be ashamed of themselves" etc etc and stopped a small bit before calling them "bums", instead calling them people "who dont understand what commuters go through cause they sit around all day in their comfy homes doing nothing!! :rolleyes:
What an idiot!, what do they put in the water in meath
He did mention one valueable point only that this motorway is to be built solely for commuting purposes(a road to nowhere??!)

Dont worry im very pro road building but building a motorway near the hill of tara is stupid, it should be redirected away from it.

Id prefer to upset a few farmers than destroy our past.

emaherx

you cant plot a route through meath without finding 28+ sites of arcelogical intrest.
many of the sites mentioned a quite a good distance from Tara.

If the greeks were of the same opinion they would have no more new roads or new olympic stadiums for that matter. In greece you find sites a arcelogical intrest evrey six inches.

sliabh

I was listening to one of the objectors on the radio recently (5-7 live I think) and they were describign teh results of an arial survey they had carried out. They listed all the sites they had identified and so on and said the road should not go ahead as a result.

But under questioning it turned out none of the sites was actually on the path of the road (so nothing was going to be destroyed) and in one case what they were objecting to the fact that the road went between groups of sites so they were seperated. These do not seem like major issues to me.

mackerski

jank wrote:

Maybe this time they can move the route in advance as everyone knows how important the hill of tara is from an archeolgoical point of view

They already did that. The alignment of the motorway is further away from the Hill of Tara than the existing N3. The objections, as far as I can understand them, are based on the fact that, since the alignment is in the same "artifact zone" that includes Tara, Knowth, Dowth Newgrange and friends, there's likely to be something of interest turned up during constuction.

Note that this is a pretty large zone. For years people have been building ugly bungalows all over it. Clearly, if they do discover Finn McCool's control bunker during construction then decisions should be made abour whether to proceed or divert. Failing that, unless we're going to turn half of Meath into a no-build zone, I don't see why the project should be that controversial.

Dermot

chewy

well just like carrickmines it not just about the archealogy there a whole of other shenanigans going...

but perhaps its hard to care for sites like this,I've never been to tara or new grange myself but think if you were going away on holiday to somewhere, and if you doing the tourist thing you'd be going to the arc de triumph or cambodian temples or even to see the geyser in yellow stone park... even silly things like that bring thousands of people and pounds in you wouldn't want a motorway going right by it would ya...

look at stone henge there building a underground tunnel underneath the whole area that so when you visit the site you can see the place like it shoud be seen with as little site of lorries rumbling down the road as possible... they realised it was mistake to building a motorway right next to it...

it is about an entire scene, thats why people complaing about wind farms you don't want to get up into the mountains to get away from it all, to get a glimpse and the scale of the earth where you could think your the only person on the planet and have your view spoiled by lines of turbine on the brow of the hill. so too you should be able to view the history this special place with as lttle disruption as possible

also isn't a disused rail line running near to the motorway , they revitalise that _before_ building a expanded road...

the other prob is the minister with dictorial powers he can what he likes with any of the national monuments now... sure didn't farmer destroy part of ring fort down in kerry a while back and it too late when you find out...

BrianD

Of course there are plenty of other people benefiting from the building of the M3. There are huge plans for residential developments in Dunshaughlin - unless the M3 bypasses the village there will be an additional 1,000 cars exiting and entering the N3 just south of the village. This is despite the fact that there is supposed to a freeze on a residential development at Dunshaughlin. I have also heard that a number of industries who located to Kells were promised in no uncertain terns that the M3 would be built allowing ease of access to Dublin.

The fact that it will be a toll road is a complete scam. I am not against tolls being used on inter city routes per se but the M3 will always be a commuter route where there is no rail corridor available. Very convenient to introduce tolls where there is a captive market.

One most also remember, that like Carrickmines there are highly paid "experts" in councils who continuously make these planning and engineering cock-ups. Then they have the temerity to turn around blame environmentalists or convservationalists for the delays.

mackerski

chewy wrote:

look at stone henge there building a underground tunnel underneath the whole area that so when you visit the site you can see the place like it shoud be seen with as little site of lorries rumbling down the road as possible... they realised it was mistake to building a motorway right next to it...

You say that as though there had been consideration of building a motorway there - very unlikely, since it's not near any part of the motorway network.

Dermot

thejollyrodger

can they not re route it away from all the old stuff and start construction soon ?

sceptre

mackerski wrote:

You say that as though there had been consideration of building a motorway there - very unlikely, since it's not near any part of the motorway network.

It's an upgrade of the A303 to a dual carriageway and it's being built (er, bored) because Stonehenge is currently caught in a fork of two roads (the A303 and A344 IIRC) that appear to be in a permanent traffic jam over the past few years (in the case of the A344, because of Stonehenge visitors). It was 1989 I visited Stonehenge and the traffic was busy enough then. All the aggro over the past few years was over the initial decision to do the tunnel by cut and cover. The current aggro is because the bore tunnel is 1.3 km long, which will still impinge on the area of the World Heritage Site. People are looking for a long-bore tunnel instead.

It's effectively a motorway upgrade (or the start of one), including the Winterbourne Stoke bypass. It's the main road from London to Exeter and part of the curent £5.5b road network upgrades.

emaherx

thejollyrodger wrote:

can they not re route it away from all the old stuff and start construction soon ?

that would be invlove routing it around meath!!

you can't plot a route through meath without comming across or at least near to a site of arcelogical importance.

chewy

but that point is the cases made for these roads have not been made properly... so its not just a case of we can't avoid it, its a case of prove to us that the need to expand the road is unavoidable ... i think road builders and car users are getting the in the way of progress not the other way round

John R

chewy wrote:

but that point is the cases made for these raods have not been made... so it not just a case of we can't avoid its a case of prove to us that the need to expand the road is unavoidable ... i think road builder and car users are getting the in the way of progress not the other way round

Well then the arguement should be "Don't build the road because it is unnecessary" not "it will destroy countless precious archaeological sites".

chewy

the people compaigning althought i wholeheartedly support them are too afraid about being cast as anti-car hippies, which they feel would destroy their creditability... i don't agree, i think you have to show that the policy of transport developement in this and most countries is still impracticaly skewed towards the car and oil

andyhunt

I hope the objectors to this project will have the decency to apologize to the family of the first person killed on the old road when the new one should have been completed due to their inevitable but futile delaying tactics. Yes it will cost a fortune in tax-payer's (OUR) money but it is essential an upgraded road is in place to improve safety ASAP. Meath has the fastest growing population in the country and Navan is the fastest growing town. The current N3 has become very dangerous and offers no safe overtaking sections this should be the main concern not ancient remains that would not have been dicovered if it were not for the road scheme anyway! I agree that tolling is a scam but those who seek to delay this for the sake of their own egos should think long and hard before they do. The M50 will cost E20m more than it should which is bad enough but there was no exisiting dangerous road to be replaced so nobody has died directly as a result of the delay, that will not be the case this time around. The new road will be further from Tara than the exisiting one any way, although it will be closer to Skreen.

Capt'n Midnight

Mayshine wrote:

In all honesty, do normal people really care all that much about all these sites that are discovered.

So they found a brick remaing to some old house. Fair enough if it is fully erect building or something, but finding a brick and fork and a silver coin in the ground that people used 1000 years ago is not really big deal is it.

Or is it?

Just wondering. Everyone talk about it but in reality do people actually care about this stuff??

Apart from the fact there most likley was a world wide weather catostrophy during the first millenium that we only have a few details about - sort of a "nuclear winter" that more or less caused the dark ages. Most archelology is just statistics, gradually the pitcure getting a little clearer with each find - but occasionally there is something found that changes everything, and it's one of the best ways of doing climate research - computers will only give you theories what could possibly happen , archeology will tell you what did happen, and things that have happened can happen again..

chewy

lol to mis-use another phrase.... it's not the cars that kill, its the peope in them

Capt'n Midnight

chewy wrote:

lol to mis-use another phrase.... it's not the cars that kill, its the peope in them

Hey that's right - car's only kill people when they are being driven, so lets not ban cars. Ban drivers instead.

Guns don't kill people, Bullets do.

andyhunt

Dept of transport figures indicate that motorways are between 20 and 30 times less likely to encounter fatal accidents than undivided national primary routes. It's clear that something needs to be done with this road which is woefully inadequate for the volume of traffic now using it. As far as I'm concerned this shoud be the priority, not to mention the millions that will inevitably line the pockets of lawyers as a result of misguided objections. If something very significant is discovered that's another story but I suspect that those who will object have their own agendas which have nothing to do with heritage. There have been several fatalaties on the N3 in recent years, particularly between Navan and Kells, I don't think those families are laughing, if poorly preserved remains of insignificant buildings are more important then I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

chewy

whatever!