My response to Fingal County Council’s public consultation on aircraft noise is here. In it, I point out that

• there should be a general ban on night-time flights given the known health impacts of sleep disturbance by aircraft noise;
• the noise reduction objective needs to be based on analysis not just picked from an EU-wide strategy;
• Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) requires that alternatives such as a general night-time ban be considered;
• SEA also requires that the climate impact of the proposal and alternatives be considered, especially as night time aviation is generally much worse for the climate than daytime;
• Fingal County Council, including when it acts as an Aircraft Noise Competent Authority, is required by Irish law to pursue climate objectives.

The 5 Green Councillors have written to Minister Darragh O’Brien and Ministers of State Malcolm Noonan and Peter Burke asking them to bring forward changes to the Electoral Act to allow local authorities to restrict postering to designated sites.

The consultation draft of the Fingal Development Plan was agreed by Councillors this evening. The first draft was produced by the Chief Executive following initial input from the elected Council. Over the last few weeks, we considered a series of 917 motions to agree the draft for public display. The following are the motions submitted by the Green Councillors.

I have made a submission on the latest application in the area covered by the South Portmarnock Local Area Plan, on two issues: walking and cycling across the existing farm bridge over the railway and connecting the Baldoyle-Portmarncok Greenway to Station Road.

The failure to make the junctions at both ends of Station Road Portmarnock safe for people walking and cycling is rightly getting some attention. I’ll try to set out the situation, which is one of non-compliance with a planning permission.

My comments are here. I strongly support the application, but I have asked An Bord Pleanála to make some important changes, including

• reducing the very large area of car parking planned (2x the size of the Racecourse shops car park plus an extra “overflow” car park);
• providing low level lighting like that on the existing greenway instead of 6m high lights;
• ensuring that the bridges don’t become dangerously icy like the existing greenway bridge;
• putting resources into planting rather than corten steel objects.

A report on current progress with the Greenway from Malahide to Donabate, given at this month’s Area Committee meeting.

My response to the Department of Housing’s consultation on draft Development Plan Guidelines asks the Department not to try to prevent local authorities using the planning system to drive the decarbonisation process.

It refers to this article on Fingal’s successful energy standards innovation at a local level, where Fingal led Ireland to higher building energy standards.

My report on the 2016 cycle study trip to Utrecht is here. Experience and study of Dutch road and street design practice is central to the changes we are making for active travel in Fingal.

The five Green Councillors on Fingal County Council coordinated the drafting of motions so as not to duplicate too much. A more or less complete set of our motions is here. Consideration of the pre-draft report and motions will start on 30th August.