Ticknock range

P38Man

Heard today that some TD has been dropping leaflets into houses surrounding the new Ticknock range stating that An Bord Pleanala has decided that planning permission will be needed if the range is to go ahead, but that the guys haven't a hope in hell of getting that planning permission due to the objections lodged ! ! ! Can anyone substantiate this?

Riggser

Where's Ticknock?

Rovi

Riggser wrote:

Where's Ticknock?

In the Dublin Mountains.
Search this forum for 'Ticknock' and read this thread particularly-
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=287568

Follow the links in the thread for the story so far.

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Rew

Well we know Olivia mitchel has been talking ****e about the range from day one. She hasn't a clue on the subject. From what i hear there is sombody living around there has alot of political pull (i.e. money).

it was refered for planning months ago, so not sure what the hold up is. personaly I agree with what the club had said that they aren't building anything so why should they get planning...

Would love to see it go ahead would be a great shooting resource for dublin.

Clash

Rew wrote:

it was refered for planning months ago, so not sure what the hold up is. personaly I agree with what the club had said that they aren't building anything so why should they get planning...

'Referred'?, Who by?, and as the range was in existence before 1963, it does not require planning permission.

Rew

The local county council decided the club required planning (and refered it to An bord Pleanala) so last I heard they were appealing that decsion. The club haven't said a thing about it since November, even to get the info about having to appeal I had to talk to members that I know. The club them selfs could have avoided alot of the orignal media circus by being a bit more forth coming with info yet there still as tight lipped as ever.

I was up there over the weekend and it looks like nothing has been done since i last saw it in September. I thought the owner was going to fence it regardless?

Fingers crossed it will still go ahead...

rrpc

You can check the status of a planning appeal online at pleanala.ie so it doesn't matter if the club are tight-lipped or not. Sometimes a google can get you the link if there is anything published on that website.

rrpc

And lo and behold here it is:

Bord Pleanala Case RL2283 wrote:

An Bord Pleanála

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACTS 2000 TO 2004

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County

An Bord Pleanála Reference Number: 06D.RL.2283

WHEREAS a question has arisen as to whether the use of the lands at Ticknock, County Dublin as a rifle range and the associated refurbishment of existing structures is or is not development or is or is not exempted development:

AND WHEREAS Hugh Durkin care of Roger Wilson of 25 Forest Avenue, Swords, County Dublin requested a declaration on the said question from Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the said Council issued a declaration on the 24th day of August, 2005 stating that the said development was not exempted development:

AND WHEREAS the said Hugh Durkin referred the declaration for review to An Bord Pleanála on the 19th day of September, 2005:

AND WHEREAS An Bord Pleanála, in considering this referral, had regard particularly to -

(a) Sections 2, 3, 4 and 39 (4) of the Planning and Development Act, 2000,

(b) Class 33 (c) of Part 1 of the Second Schedule to the Planning and Development Regulations, 2001,

(c) Article 9 of the said Regulations, and

(d) the evidence supplied by the referrer, the observers and by the planning authority in this referral.

AND WHEREAS An Bord Pleanála has concluded that the said of use of the lands as a rifle range constitutes a material change of use, the previous use as a rifle range having been abandoned, and is accordingly development as defined by Section 3 of the Planning and Development Act, 2001:

NOW THEREFORE An Bord Pleanála, in exercise of the powers conferred on it by section 5 (3) (a) of the 2000 Act, hereby decides that the said use of the lands at Ticknock, County Dublin, as a rifle range and the associated refurbishment of existing structures is development and is not exempted development.

So that's the end result. They will now have to apply for planning permission, and seeing as the Council referred them to An Bord Pleanala in the first place phrases involving snowballs and hell come to mind

Rovi

The whole thing is here-
http://www.pleanala.ie/data1/searchdetails.asp?id=694709&caseno=RL2283

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Rew

Yeah looks dead in the water alright. Pittly really coz it would have been a great resource for shooters in the Dublin area.

Traumadoc

Is the shooting on these lands now banned, or is it just the clearing of scrub/development of the facilities that is banned?

Rew

Turing it in to a gun club is subject to planning permission but the land owner could still giver anyone he wants permission to shoot there (I assume?)

rrpc

Rew wrote:

Turing it in to a gun club is subject to planning permission but the land owner could still giver anyone he wants permission to shoot there (I assume?)

Only for the purposes of vermin control or hunting in season.

Rovi

rrpc wrote:

Only for the purposes of vermin control or hunting in season.

What about informal plinking, clay pigeon shooting, paper targets, etc?
I sometimes host a few friends at my place for any and all of these things. What's to stop the owner of Ticknock from doing the same?

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civdef

I'm no planning expert, but IIRC you can use ground for a certain number of days per year without needing planning permission to do so.

rrpc

Rovi wrote:

What about informal plinking, clay pigeon shooting, paper targets, etc?
I sometimes host a few friends at my place for any and all of these things. What's to stop the owner of Ticknock from doing the same?

In theory, nothing. In practice because they have been ruled as having no permission to use the land as a range, any shooting at targets there will be construed as having breached this.

Shooting on your own land with a couple of mates on an informal basis is fine, providing you are doing so safely, and not creating an ongoing nuisance. You could even set up a dedicated range for your own use, and not be in breach of planning, providing that you do not start holding open competitions there.

Dvs

Perhaps anyone who lives in Olivia Mitchells Dublin South constituency,
could show their appreciation at the next election by not voting for her,
and encourage anyone they know to do the same.

Also if she calls to your doorstep, seeking your vote,
tell her in plain english, why she will not get your vote !

Dvs.

Rew

Dvs wrote:

Perhaps anyone who lives in Olivia Mitchells Dublin South constituency,
could show their appreciation at the next election by not voting for her,
and encourage anyone they know to do the same.

Also if she calls to your doorstep, seeking your vote,
tell her in plain english, why she will not get your vote !

Dvs.

Even better start questioning her experience with firearms and her understanding of firearm safety. She claimed to be quite the expert between radio, newspaper and her website...

rrpc

Rew wrote:

Even better start questioning her experience with firearms and her understanding of firearm safety. She claimed to be quite the expert between radio, newspaper and her website...

Even better would be to stop shooting the messenger and instead to learn something from this sorry experience. The Olivia Mitchells of this world will always be there. So instead of blaming them, you should be thinking of what should have been done to prevent this whole unfortunate situation from developing into the FUBAR mess it is now.

If the LRPC had done their homework, they would have realised that they would have come up against the planning laws sooner or later, one would have thought sooner due to the high level of use the surrounding area was getting from the general public. The 'lets keep our heads down and hope nobody notices' approach is arrant nonsense in this day and age, and a far better approach would have been to have applied for planning initially. I'm not suggesting that they would have got the planning, but any application stands no chance of success now.

There are a number of other ranges/clubs in the country adopting the same attitude in the mistaken belief that nobody will notice. In one of these cases, I am aware that everyone has noticed, and are just waiting for their chance to pounce. Adopting this blinkered attitude has little merit and will just get peoples backs up.

sidneyreilly

rrpc wrote:

Even better would be to stop shooting the messenger and instead to learn something from this sorry experience. The Olivia Mitchells of this world will always be there. So instead of blaming them, you should be thinking of what should have been done to prevent this whole unfortunate situation from developing into the FUBAR mess it is now.

Well I for one will not be voting that way in the election because of this and I will be telling any politician who comes to my door exactly why!

civdef

Have there been any moves towards looking at an alternative location?

Olivia Mitchell did state in her press releases that she recognised shooting as a legitimate sport, but didnt like the Ticknock location, so why not now turn the tables on her and get her to help sourcing another location?

Rew

rrpc wrote:

Even better would be to stop shooting the messenger and instead to learn something from this sorry experience. The Olivia Mitchells of this world will always be there. So instead of blaming them, you should be thinking of what should have been done to prevent this whole unfortunate situation from developing into the FUBAR mess it is now.

If the LRPC had done their homework, they would have realised that they would have come up against the planning laws sooner or later, one would have thought sooner due to the high level of use the surrounding area was getting from the general public. The 'lets keep our heads down and hope nobody notices' approach is arrant nonsense in this day and age, and a far better approach would have been to have applied for planning initially. I'm not suggesting that they would have got the planning, but any application stands no chance of success now.

There are a number of other ranges/clubs in the country adopting the same attitude in the mistaken belief that nobody will notice. In one of these cases, I am aware that everyone has noticed, and are just waiting for their chance to pounce. Adopting this blinkered attitude has little merit and will just get peoples backs up.

Well to be fair they checked planning details and were under the impression that they didnt need planning seeing as they weren't building anything and the area is a rifle range. They also talked to locals and informed them of their plans.

Not sure how much truth is in it but I hear there is someone up there with political sway/money that was driving the anti-range movement through Mitchel.

The range was active in the mid 90's as well so its not unused for that long. I think very narrow minds are keeping this from happening. I hope the club haven't given up but its impossible to know seeing as they are as tight lipped as ever. Bit silly as they could garner alot of support from us and other shooters. I dont think all avenues are closed yet anyway. With the CJB putting in provisions for aproving ranges they may be able to prove safety in a planning application. Civdef's idea is also a very good one.

rrpc

The proper way to have dealt with this was to have approached the council in the first place. If you're first in the door, they can be very obliging and helpful. If you start doing things behind their backs and cause an uproar, they are left with very few alternatives. Remember, if you leave a civil servant with no options, they aren't going to make one up for you :rolleyes:

Clare gunner

If the rumour is that somone with money is behind Olivia and is pushing for this range to be closed down.
Ask around the area who is intrested in this land as well for whatever purposes,be it the other"sports"that were discommoded by Ticknock setting up again.Property speculators or somone with an idea of setting somthing else up on the site.You will find that it isnt just an anti gun politican but somone with money and an eye on that piece of ground,using Mitchel as a stalking horse.
If the land was used as a range up to the mid Nineties,find out who was the last users of it[IE,rifle club,or military,gardai,etc]were and the last time it was used by them.Also if it was historically always a rifle range I cant see the council objecting on "change of use" grounds.It was not used as a rifle range for a period of time,but it was not a field that then people wanted to convert to a rifle range.The important thing is to find out how long does a lapse of use apply,before it becomes a reapplication?

Rew

I dont think there are property devlopers in the mix just somone in the area who decided to put a stop to it.

It was an Army range till the mid 90's at which point it was sold as a package of lands. The new owner only had a use for the other lands in the package and didnt do anything with the range till he was approched by the club AFAIK. Owner didnt realise the his land was being used by mountin bikers and scramblers till he was told as well.

Clash

AFAIK, the Army were stopped from using it on the grounds of safety. I imagine the council would have been involved at that stage as would have been Coillte, whose land adjoins the range. There are thousands of people using the woods at weekends, and the range whether rightly or wrongly represents a serious hazard to them. It's not a case of lapse of use or change of use. The Army were stopped from using it, and at that point it was no longer a range, but agricultural land. In any event, when the land was being used by the military, all access was closed off for the duration of the use. This obviously would not be possible for a club to do. Face it folks, that range is a complete dead duck.

Sparks

There are thousands of people using the woods at weekends

...all illegally...

Rew

Clash wrote:

AFAIK, the Army were stopped from using it on the grounds of safety. I imagine the council would have been involved at that stage as would have been Coillte, whose land adjoins the range. There are thousands of people using the woods at weekends, and the range whether rightly or wrongly represents a serious hazard to them. It's not a case of lapse of use or change of use. The Army were stopped from using it, and at that point it was no longer a range, but agricultural land. In any event, when the land was being used by the military, all access was closed off for the duration of the use. This obviously would not be possible for a club to do. Face it folks, that range is a complete dead duck.

It was sold by the army when they were selling off alot of there land, the range was surplus to requirements and Killpedder down the road is argueably a better range so why keep two?

Plenty of military ranges are in areas frequented by the public, Killbride is popular with hill walkers, scramblers and mountin bikers. As far as I can tell the Army selling on safety grounds is a rumour going back to when this subject came up last September. If you google for Ticknock there is referance to its sale in government/Army.

Clare gunner

We had a simmilar situation here with a range called Knocklisheen outside Limerick in Clare.It was an army camp from the 40s but the range was used intermittedly by the army,the then FCA and the Gardai SB.Trouble was it overlooked a local MEPs land who was breeding race horses.Needless to say the firing was spooking his delicately minded horses,and so he worked on getting it closed down.To be honest the Army,and Co were abusing it as well abit.Like ripping off full clips in one go or detonating hand grenades or flash bangs.So before Knocklisheen was sold off the Dept of defence spent appx a million punts building a 15 foot wall to prevent bullets travelling and for noise reduction.Neither worked very well.But in the end Knocklisheen was closed down and sold to whomever who built a refugee centre on it.
Long and the short of it was.The range there was dangerous as it was a very low backstop and also the bullets could travel over open country,back in the 40s and 50s,but it is becoming built up.But what I can see of Ticknock is that it is built into a side of a mountain?Also if the army was using it,isnt it unlikely that they would have used it on a weekend when there would be more civvies knocking around?Surely it cant be too difficult to errect some good chain link and signs warning of the danger of tresspassing on the range when a red flag is flying?
Whoever is putting a spanner in the works,has got to have an intrest in the area,maybe not necessarily in the property either,has money and is close to Olivia Mitchel.In other words somone with alot of clout in that area.Thought that ticknock had invited her down to the range and got some publicity going on the matter as well??

Sparks

Clare gunner wrote:

Surely it cant be too difficult to errect some good chain link and signs warning of the danger of tresspassing on the range when a red flag is flying?

If signs like this don't have any bearing on the case CG, why would safety warnings?

Rew

Army use their ranges 7 days a week. Ticknock is differant to alot of ranges because the firing points are all higher then the targets so the shooter is always aiming down into the buts. It is built in to the mountin side and the land behind the backstop is thick forrest and slopes up steeply. The back stop is about 20 feet and the club planned to place a row of sand filled barrels on to of it as well. It was going to be fenced off and signs put up waring of the danger. As well as that red flags would be flying when shooting was taking place.