Pizarro Refusal "No Surprise", say Greens

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Pizarro Refusal "No Surprise", say Greens

Wednesday, April 11 2007

“An Bord Pleanala’s decision to refuse Pizarro development was no surprise” say Green Party Councillors.

Green Party Councillors on Bray Town Council reacted to yesterday’s decision by an Bord Pleanala to over-turn the planning permission granted to Pizarro Developments Ltd for a massive 2 billion development on Bray Golf Club Lands by claiming that the decision was “no surprise”. They pointed out that the Board’s decision reflected many of the major planning concerns that had been publicly expressed by the Bray Green councillors about the development.

“We take little satisfaction in saying that the concerns expressed by the Green Party about the planning permission granted to Pizarro by Bray Town Council were fully supported by an Bord Pleanala” says Green Party General Election Candidate, Cllr Deirdre De Burca. She says that the Board’s description of the planning permission granted to Pizarro by Bray Town Council as “premature” raised serious questions about the local council’s failure to properly consider issues such as the likely traffic impact of the massive development on the town of on Bray.

“If the council had taken a little more time in assessing the Pizarro application, it could have addressed these problems at an early stage and avoided this setback” she says. “I believe the business community in Bray have a right to be very annoyed at this failure by the local authority”. However, she says that the Board’s refusal of the Pizarro application now offers an opportunity to improve the proposed development and in particular to ensure that the extension of the Luas Green Line from Cherrywood will serve the Golf Club Lands development, thereby significantly reducing the possibility of future traffic problems generated by the development.

According to Green Party councillor, Ciaran o Brien, the Board’s main grounds for refusal were the flood plain and the lack of availability of suitable flood defence works, the inability of the N11 and the surrounding local road network to accommodate the huge amount of traffic generated by the proposed development, and the failure to provide for adequate open space. He says that the Green Party is clear that the flood plain should not have been zoned for high-density Town Centre purposes or developed in the manner proposed.

‘The lack of public open space in the development identified by the Board could, and should have been accommodated on that portion of the golf club lands that is a flood plain” says Cllr o Brien. “ The flood plain could be developed into a linear park along the Dargle to the Harbour area which would offer a great planning gain to the town of Bray. Unfortunately the developer is unlikely to consider this possibility unless required to do so by Bray Town Council”.

Green Party councillor, Caroline Burrell is adamant that both the M50 and N11 would have become another series of “Mad Cow roundabouts” in North Wicklow if this proposal had gone ahead as proposed. She says that this opinion is reflected in the Board’s report which states : “ The scale of the increase in traffic coupled with the impact of the development itself indicates that there is not capacity on the N11 to accommodate the development”.

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