Greystones Marina

Joliegood

Article on page 2 of the Times today about this. Apparently work will begin next week. There are suggestions it may be a white elephant. I'm inclined to agree.With the downturn in the economy and falling house prices I can't see how this will be profitable.

The only winners I see out of this is the Byrnes as their pub will be busy with builders most evenings.

Seapoint

Irish Times, Wednesday, January 2, 2008

€300m Greystones harbour scheme to start

Olivia Kelly

Construction of the controversial €300 million redevelopment scheme for Greystones harbour in Co Wicklow is to begin next week, Wicklow County Council has said.

The contract for the project, which includes a new harbour and marina, as well as substantial commercial and residential development, was signed by the council and its private partner Sispar on New Year's Eve.

The intention is to allow construction to get under way at the earliest possible date as the objective is to replace the crumbling Victorian harbour.

However, opponents of large-scale development of the harbour have urged the council not to rush in to the construction of apartments and shops which could be left vacant and become derelict.

The project was granted planning permission by An Bord Pleanála last August, following two oral hearings and despite the receipt by the board of more than 9,000 objections.

The council originally put its plans for the redevelopment, which was to include 6,400sq m (68,889sq ft) of commercial, mainly marine-related units, a 15-acre park and a 230-berth marina with a public slipway, on public display in 2001.

The planning board's hearing into the proposed development was opened in April 2006, but was deferred when the board asked the council to resubmit its plans, reducing housing and deleting apartment blocks close to Victorian housing in the area.

The revised development will include a 230-berth marina, 341 residential units and 5,500sq m of commercial units, incorporating cafes and restaurants. There will also be "substantial" private parking, the council said.

County manager Eddie Sheehy said: "This €300 million project, which includes public facilities to a value of more than €50 million, will mean that the existing derelict harbour will be rejuvenated to become an integral part of the town. I am confident that this will be regarded as one of the most visionary and innovative public private partnership projects ever undertaken in the State."

However, Greystones Protection and Development Association, which opposed the scheme, said that commercial premises were already lying vacant in Greystones and the council could be left with a costly white elephant.

Association spokeswoman Evelyn Cawley said: "We are warning the council to be cautious. The downturn in the economy will mean that there is less demand for apartment life and they can't deliver the volume of housing they are planning and expect it to be occupied. They need to re-examine whether this is the right time to be doing this."

The association wanted to see the proper redevelopment of Greystones harbour and would be monitoring the progress of the development to ensure that community facilities were provided, even if the residential or commercial aspects were scaled down, Ms Cawley said.

Meanwhile, a planning application for a €100 million retail, leisure and entertainment complex in Kildare town has been lodged with Kildare County Council.

The development will have 10,500sq m of retail space, six restaurants, a five-lane bowling alley, a 130-seat amphitheatre, a gym, a new town library and civic centre, skating park and two playgrounds on the 16-acre site of the former Black and Decker factory in the town.

© 2008 The Irish Times

Mitch Connor

on the plus side, it might mean there is a small chance of me being able to afford to live in the town I have grown up in.

Welsh Wizard

Can't wait till its built.. hoping to have one of the commercial offices myself...

mikedragon32

Folks, just a friendly reminder that develpment threads here usually turn into flamewars and get locked.

Already, I can see that this one could go the same way quite quickly.

Welsh Wizard, before posting again, take a look at the charter and in particlar the bits about flaming and/or trolling. Eoin has already noticed you (from your first post) and I'm keeping an eye on you too. Not a good start.

loyatemu

just because the property market is depressed at the moment doesn't mean it will still be down in 3 years time when the apartments are ready. Even if they can't sell them for the ludicrous prices that were around a year ago, they'll still make a profit on them.

As for the shops and commercial units - well as we've seen in Charlesland, developers don't seem too bothered if these lie vacant for long periods provided they've made their money on other parts of the scheme.

(on an slightly unrelated note - i'd say there's a market for a proper cafe at the harbour - we were in the Beach House yesterday and tried to get a cappuccino but no dice. OK, its a pub but they get all their barfood from the Italian restaurant above, they could get coffee from there as well...)

Joliegood

loyatemu wrote: »

we were in the Beach House yesterday and tried to get a cappuccino but no dice. OK, its a pub but they get all their barfood from the Italian restaurant above, they could get coffee from there as well...)

That would require a little bit of inspiration and courtesy. Which is sadly not always evident with some of the staff in there.

GAN

totally agree about the coffee shop, it would be lovely to have somewhere nice like that overlooking the sea. A Dunne and Crescenzi-style wine bar would be brilliant as well

Welsh Wizard

Apologies to anyone that maybe a little upset for what I said in my earlier post, I was told opinions were like bum holes... Everybody has one...
I was only stating my intentions for the future.. Sure who knows it may even be the coffee shop people want...
Hopefully now I'm back in the good books and don’t get detention..!!

Ossie

These apartments will be a severe risk of flooding. The Dept of the Marine stated in thier submission that the breakwaters will be too low. The experts for the developers admitted that the breakwaters will be subject to severe wave overtopping. God help anyone in their car in the underground car park when the development is hit by a tidal surge.

lostexpectation

pic in paper didn't show the bulk of the buildings a new angle from the developers, its for you really... not us I swear

xshayx

Has this started? Carpark by Sweeny's fenced off, and they have started burying big wooden posts on the road down to the north beach carpark....

Joliegood

It has started I'm afraid to say. Yesterday morning a truck went through Church Road and headed off towards the harbour at the turn of Bradys/Centra. Just that one alone caused a small disruption to traffic. Wait till it really gets going..........

Ossie

Joliegood wrote: »

It has started I'm afraid to say. Yesterday morning a truck went through Church Road and headed off towards the harbour at the turn of Bradys/Centra. Just that one alone caused a small disruption to traffic. Wait till it really gets going..........

The very heavy traffic volumes of cement lorries to the harbour (morning, noon and night) to construct this monster will be just one of the many drawbacks to this hideous plan foisted upon us by WCC and ABP. When people grow weary of this outrage I see civil unrest and protests will be commonplace in Greystones.

Hammiepeters

As far as I know there will be a cement plant on site and some materials will be brought in by barge. So I think predictions of ''civil unrest'' are a little alarmist. But I do appreciate that there have been strong feelings about this project and probably will be for a while to come.

fishdog

As far as I know there will be a cement plant on site and some materials will be brought in by barge.

This is correct. I was at a meeting with the project management team, they told me most materials would be brought in this way. However they told me that there would be a large volume of trucks also. I cant recall how many. This is the nature of the beast. You can not make an omelette without without breaking a few eggs!!

Personally the trucks, dust, noise etc. does not bother me, it is a necessary evil in construction. It is the design that bothers me. I have worked for along time in these conditions and I think Im immune to it now. However for others that are directly affected there might be a bit of

civil unrest

We shall see.

At least it is providing a much needed boost to the construction industry.

Joliegood

I could be wrong but my understanding of the pp was that no work was to be carried out outside of normal core hours. Why then was there work going on after 9pm the other night ?

Ossie

Hammiepeters wrote: »

As far as I know there will be a cement plant on site and some materials will be brought in by barge.

The EIS and all the information provided to ABP stated that the cement will ALL be brought in by ROAD.

ABP insisted that the annual 12,000 tonnes of beach nourishment material must be brought to the north beach by barge. SISPAR wanted this to be brought by road.

future_plans

What is the exact route the trucks will be taking to get to and from the Harbour from the N11?

xshayx

Getting well underway, more road markings going down today, more deliveries, and more of the beach fenced off from the road....

daveco23

Just for once, it would be nice to see a thread re any development not resort to flamebaiting - Dubrunner, you made your view on this abundantly clear on another thread - was there a valid reason to hijack this one too?

mikedragon32

Daveco, if you have difficulty with a post, rather than take the bait, report the post, using the report post button in the bottom left corner of the post.


Dubrunner, careful now.

future_plans

Anybody know the route for the trucks? Is it out Rathdowne road towards Bray or up through the village and out past Charlesland they will be going?

Ossie

future_plans wrote: »

Anybody know the route for the trucks? Is it out Rathdowne road towards Bray or up through the village and out past Charlesland they will be going?

Due to the very limited access to the construction site all roads leading to the harbour will be used to transport the cement to the cement factory in Darcys field. So expect traffic jams driving over Bray Head and through the town throughout the day Monday to Saturday for the next 6 years.

andlommy

SATURDAY??!!! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

I live like 10 meters away from the site entrance, but since i work weekdays, i don't care too much about the working days (well...except for the view that's completely destroyed).

Are they going to work on saturday?!!! that's a killer.

Are there any authorities that can i turn to to get help regarding this, because there's nothing worse than being woken up by a truck on a saturday morning...every weekend...

future_plans

Going up the Church road and through the village would be a disaster. The traffic is already bad enough there with lots of pedestrians. A large volume of trucks on that road would only lead to an accident.

But one of the ABP conditions were in relation to this, I just cannot recall what it was exactly.

future_plans

Just found what I was talking about. The primary access route for the site will be down the R761. So I guess the trucks will not be going through the village.

fishdog

Are there any authorities that can i turn to to get help regarding this, because there's nothing worse than being woken up by a truck on a saturday morning...every weekend...

The project is planned to take six years (this is code for at least 7 years). This calculation was done on the basis of working 6 days a week. If they work 5 days a week, it will take even longer to complete. So no, I don’t think there are any authorities that you can turn to. All of the negotiations regarding the marina finished a long time ago.

mikedragon32

Yet another development thread veers wildly off-topic and descends into a flame war.

Thanks for posting BoadMad. Have a week off and read the charter before you post here again, in particular the bit about trolling and flamebait.

Thread locked.

mikedragon32

Eoin and I have discussed this thread and have agreed to reopen it.

As you will have seen, it's been heavily pruned to take out all the off-topic and crap posts and we will keep it this way.

If you post in this thread, it should be valid, relevant and factual. Opinions and flame will be dealt with and instant bans issued.

Sorry if you think this is harsh, but users want to talk about this and others seem incapable of a rational discussion. If this thread is to remain open, this is the only way.

micandre

Hello,
I was looking at:
http://www.greystonesharbour.ie/further_info.html
This page shows that a meeting took place on 4 Dec 07.
The minutes of the meeting state the next meeting to be Tuesday 8th January at 7:00 p.m. No minutes of this meeting or subsequent meetings have been posted on this site. I'm not getting much of a response from info@greystonesharbour.ie to put the latest minutes up on the website.

It's a pity at such an early stage I need to go to the council or rely on discussion forums to find out what's going on.
Regards.