Re: Re: Dublin Historic Stone Paving disbelief

Yes, and specifically the conservation issues relating to insertion of bollards in a historic pavement, which both of you mentioned. This is a very important issue. As said, each bollard inserted requires a deleterious cut into the paving fabric – not exactly what you’d call best practice for the care and conservation of historic resources, is it?

If bollards were deemed necessary here at the edge of the new Dame Street plaza (see below), would it not have been better to see how or where else they could have been incorporated that would have avoided making irreversible cuts into the 200-year old pavement?

So why were bollards deemed necessary here?

(a) To protect pedestrians? I don’t think so, as penning off the footpaths is not wider policy around the city centre generally.

(b) To stop vehicles from driving onto the plaza? It doesn’t seem so, as there is room to bring a vehicle on at either end.

(c) To stop people parking on the pavement on the basis that, if you parked here, you wouldn’t be blocking pedestrians because they can walk by through the adjoining plaza? Perhaps, but I think our clamping system would soon sort that out.

(d) To stop commercial vans pulling up “for a few minutes” as said earlier? Possibly, but if so, maybe the CC were being over-zealous in preventing this? I’m just not sure that putting bollards here justifies the cuts into the old pavement for any of these possible reasons.

What in years to come when, under Transport 21, Luas is coming down the street and it is a largely traffic-free area, and these kinds of measures for restricting vehicles aren’t such an issue anymore? What when, over time, the bollards become bent and kinked from things hitting them like the ones in Smithfield? Either way, the stone pavement is going to last longer than the bollards, and when they are eventually taken out, you’re going to be left with a visually degraded pavement where the bollard marks have to be filled with bits of mortar.

Again, it comes back to the fact that there is no consultation system in place for Dublin’s historic granite pavements (as there is for its protected buildings), no conservation advice received, no chance for anyone else to have a say. Someone in Wood Quay takes a decision and it is done … Yes I know the pointing was done correctly this time DCC, but consideration of other options for the bollards was needed here I think.

Something that’s also open to question is whether stainless steel is a suitable finish for bollards here. It may be ok on O’Connell Street where it’s part of the whole new street design, but it is not necessarily the right thing to insert into aged granite. But that’s another issue.
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