The issue of the access between Castlerosse and Admiral Park and to new
\nMillennium Park and pitches came up at Monday\u2019s Council meeting.<\/p>\n
As
\nresidents will know, I leafleted the area setting out the facts and
\nconsiderations some months ago, including the details of the planning
\npermission applicable in the area.\u00a0 I avoided giving my personal view
\nbecause I didn\u2019t want to make any commitment before having a chance to
\nhear all of the arguments and issues.\u00a0 However, while distributing
\nthose leaflets I spoke to some girls (aged about 9 to 12) who were
\nclimbing the wall to get back to Castlerosse where they lived.\u00a0 My mind
\nwas pretty much made up by that conversation.\u00a0 The submissions received
\neffectively confirmed my decision.<\/p>\n
The three options put on display were as follows:<\/p>\n
Option 1 was to integrate the open space and provide a planted pedestrian access from Grange Road through the open space to the new park and pitches which are going on the open land between Baldoyle and Portmarnock.<\/p>\n
Option 2 was to provide the access through the open space but with railings on both sides, dividing it from Castlerosse and from Admiral Park.\u00a0 This would involve most of what has up to now been the Admiral Park open space being fenced off from Admiral Park.<\/p>\n
Option 3 was to maintain and strengthen existing boundaries.\u00a0 Castlerosse would be permanently divided from Admiral Park and there would be no access from Baldoyle to the new park and pitches.<\/p>\n
I put the consultation information on this site here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 45 submissions were received:<\/p>\n 24 were from Admiral Park.\u00a0 Of these 22 wanted the current situation with the fence reinforced (Option 3) and 2 recommended the fenced off access to the park which means Admiral Park losing most of its open space(Option 2).<\/p>\n 8 were from Castlerosse.\u00a0 Of these 6 (from 4 houses) wanted the area to be opened (Option 1) and\u00a0 2 (from 1 house) wanted it closed (Option 3).<\/p>\n 13 were from further out in Baldoyle (this includes two received by email without postal addresses which could have been in Castlerosse or Admiral park.\u00a0 11 of these favoured Option 1, opening the area out and 2 went for Option 2.\u00a0 The two which recommended Option 2 did so mostly because they thought local residents wanted to be fenced off and didn\u2019t want to go against them.<\/p>\n The discussion in the Council was quite heated. It\u2019s online<\/a>\u00a0starting at around 3.25.\u00a0 In the end Option 2 was agreed by a majority of 11 to 5.\u00a0 The Socialist Party and Fine Gael provided the main arguments in favour of this.<\/p>\n Option 2 had the lowest level of public support.\u00a0 As I mentioned above, it involves Admiral Park losing most of it\u2019s open space.\u00a0 The majority appear to have decided for it\u00a0 on the basis that this is what the Councillors voting for it thought the local residents would want.<\/p>\n My decision to support Option 1 was based on my concern for the importance of walkable neighbourhoods.\u00a0 Such neighbourhoods lead to better community spirit, less car use and healthier more relaxed lives.\u00a0 There is a signficant body of evidence on this now.\u00a0 For example here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Interestingly our professional advisors from the Parks and Planning Departments of the Council, had no advice for the Councillors on the importance of providing pedestrian access to residential areas, despite it being part of the Development Plan.<\/p>\n A majority of the Councillors voted in favour of blocking pedestrian I honestly find it all Ireland follows the American model yet again; watch our lifestyle diseases rise along with theirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The issue of the access between Castlerosse and Admiral Park and to new Millennium Park and pitches came up at Monday\u2019s Council meeting. As residents will know, I leafleted the area setting out the facts and considerations some months ago, including the details of the planning permission applicable in the area.\u00a0 I avoided giving my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1701,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/1701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidhealy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\naccess to Castlerosse and in favour of fencing off most of the Admiral
\nPark open space in order to create a fenced access to the new
\nMillennium Park and pitches.<\/p>\n
\ndepressing and quite hard to understand.\u00a0 If they had a deliberate
\npolicy of trying to prevent people, from walking they couldn’t do much
\nworse.<\/p>\n