Deerpark – Mount Merrion. All weather football facilities!

Apologies for resurrecting this, but I’m just wondering if anybody knows if this proposal for Deer Park is going ahead? Searches on Google draw a blank.

It would be shame if it is the case, as it’s a wonderful park with great views at night.

Heaven forbid that the Council should actually provide some high quality sports facilities for people to use, and accessible to residential development…and in a public park…what next!

what could anyone have against a modest sports facility for our young (and older) people to use? we should be encouraging these type of facilities, it takes up a tiny proportion of ‘your’ park which you no doubt use in full!

NIMBY of the year, pathetic!

NIMBY my ass. I know this area – the park isn’t big enough – simple as that. I played football here as a youth and never needed a commercial floodlit pitch that no-one but footballers was allowed access to. When Mount Anville School installed floodlight facility in their copius grounds right next door I didn’t mind, even though it was IMBY. I’m against this because it’s FENCING OFF a large area of a public park that I use DAILY.

SMB SunnyDub, or reply to me with a different attitude in future.

I suppose the tennis courts and the trees should go too, so you can have a bit more space to roll around in!

I think you’re pic above says it all, a tiny portion of the park that will be used more intensively, that’s what parks are for.

fjp who owns the land? If it’s discovered that it belongs to the applicant who are Mount Merrion Youths Football Club then your point re Part 8 is null and void. If not then you have a case. Anyway the Councillors may very likely approve of this and would have voted in favour of it. It’s not clever for a Local Authority to veto private investment in sports facilities such as this. Have you eveidence of political opposition to this? And what are the other 3 applications you referred to?

As for “public access” the visual you post shows footpaths along all sides and through the middle of the park. Can you not walk on these? as is their function? As an ex schoolboy footballer who played on this pitch and pretty much every other one in Dublin, it;s not nice to slide into a winger to tackle him, win the ball only to get up with a dog turd all over your leg. So public access to sports pitches is not necessarily in the common interest as you intriguingly assume! I may be being slightly facetious but there are other issues such as rubbish, broken glass, Halloween bonfire detritus and in some cases, not Mount Merrion surely, burnt out cars. I acknowledge that teams have to play on grass for their matches but they shouldn’t have to train in these conditions. As such this proposal is a worthy one and your opposition smacks of total opportunistic nimbyism.

Lastly the fact that YOU never “needed” commercial (what does that even mean) floodlit pitches is irrelevant. I trained and played in utter dereliction – muddy pitches, littered pitches, horses tied to goalposts, smashed glass all over the place, rain and darkness, got changed in containers or the backs of cars etc etc and I for one would be appalled to think that a modest proposal like this (maybe 12% of the park area?) for any sporting code, GAA, Soccer, Tennis etc could be derailed for such spurious, selfish and nonsenical reasons. This park comprises 4 football pitches with a few paths. You are the visitor, the clubs and players are the rightful occupiers.

So you neglected to mention that 95 submissions were made to the LA, 48 against and 47 in favour. This adds great credence to my hypothesis that the Councillors may indeed have voted in favour of the development.

Also neglected was the proposed use of the facility:

“The All-weather pitch would be used on a continual basis throughout the week The facility would be shared with the National School in Scoil San Treasa, Oatlands College and the Muslin School in Clonskeagh during school hours. The total number of player membership in the football club is stated as 550”

The Inspector actually recommended refusal. I disagree with much of his assessment. Some snippets from his Report:

“the practical and sensible needs of the footballers conflict with a landscape which was created to serve artistic ends rather than more practical playing field purposes.”

Eh I scored a free kick here once that was as bloody artistic as anything Capability Brown could ever produce!!!

“The utilitarian needs of the Football Club conflict with the aesthetic need to preserve the open and undisturbed serene quality of the existing landscape.”

Undisturbed eh? Overheard at football pitches all over Dublin – “Hit him… fuuucking hit hiiiiim” “Here Ref, you’re a fuuuckiing blind bollix” “For fucks sake wha’ in de nayum o’ jaysus was dat supposed to be” Ah serenity, you can’t beat it!

One of his reasons for refusal:

“2. The sole use of the fenced-off pitch by a private sports club or other users by permission would seriously impact upon and limit the use of this area of the park by the general public. This would be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”

I disagree. The health of the general public, particularly the young, is a key determinant of quality of life of a society, in both the short and long term, and is therefore a critical constituent of proper and sustainable planning and development. Planning has for far too long ignored things like the impact of our built environment on health. In this case, the Local Authority can directly impact on the recreational offer of a community for it’s people and rightly responded in the positive. To allow the 550 footballers and all those schools wallow in substandard facilities would contravene one of the core principles of town planning – the exact same principle that the Georgians who built this park espoused – that we must build an environment that promotes healthy activities and community interaction. In this case the playing of games by 22 people at a time is a worthy aim.

The Inspector also throws in a quote:

“The main reason we have so little beauty in our cities is not that the capacity to produce this is lacking, but that so few people among us realise that there is any real necessity for the city to possess this quality”. H. Lanchester1925. (Founding member of the Royal Town Planning Institute).

Lanchy, you shoulda seen that free kick 😉

Back to the Champions League with me….

I’m going to keep this brief, because you guys just reminded me why I stopped visiting this board in the first place. I’ve participated in many discussion forums, mostly based abroad, and find some Irish forums to be rude, though at least alonso has some substance to his comments. I had a nicer time in that creationist board that me and some physicists used to cause havoc in (though the be honest, the creationist were really into their discussions, so everyone had a good time).

alonso – I’m going to reply to you politely, and I’m assuming you’re going to take my points, evaluate them, and take them into consideration.

The crux of my point is that this park, unlike most other parks, is generally used for non-sporting recreational use. It really is a very small park. It consists of a wooded area, and an open area. I feel the area to be “removed” is disproportionate for the size of the park. This is the consensus of the many park users who object to this development. I know it looks like it doesn’t matter, but if you were there, it would. If you’ve been there and you think it doesn’t matter, then we just don’t agree.

To be honest alonso – I feel that the these quotes capture the park quite well:

“the practical and sensible needs of the footballers conflict with a landscape which was created to serve artistic ends rather than more practical playing field purposes.”

“The utilitarian needs of the Football Club conflict with the aesthetic need to preserve the open and undisturbed serene quality of the existing landscape.”

I appreciate these aesthetic and artistic attitudes – I think this is an excellent description of this park. You just sort of laughed at it. We’re at odds here – I reckon you value one thing, whereas I value another. I think the park is an excellent amenity as it stands, you think it’s a crap football pitch. I wish more children has access to a park like this, you wish more kids had floodlights. I’ve stood in dog-shit, but then I rubbed the dog.

So, assuming that you appreciate equally valid and equally different values, we’re probably not going to agree on this matter. Whereas you see the primary quality of this park as recreation through football (by floodlight), I see the primary quality of this park as open spaces, views, a forest area, and non-floodlit football/hurling/gaelic/kite-flying/frisbee-stuff/walking/running. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind the floodlights – it’s the fencing that gets me.

Regarding your constant NIMBY accusations – I assume I have now provided enough information to convince you that I have a valid, if different, opinion to yours. I personally feel that shouting NIMBY at people because they disagree with a planning application that is located near them is useless and offensive.

ps – there are other options for the schools mentioned:
Oatlands already has football pitches. It has quite a big space out the back.
The Mosque has numerous flood-lit pitches in the adjoining grounds at UCD, though I guess UCD won’t share.
The German school has one flood-lit all-weather pitch and also backs onto UCD, but maybe UCD hates them too.
St Teresa’s is a mixed national school, and not that big. They might also be more into their Gaelic, but yeah – they’re in the right catchment area at least, so cudos on the National School.
The other two football pitches in the park are actually hurling/football – which means one of those will need to fenced eventually too. See you back here in five years, recession permitting!

The pitch takes up less than 10% of the park. There’s still tons of space for everything youve mentioned.

@fjp wrote:

The other two football pitches in the park are actually hurling/football – which means one of those will need to fenced eventually too. See you back here in five years, recession permitting!

some fair points and no time to reply in full. But just on the above – What would be the point of fencing of a Gaelic Games pitch? how high would the fence have to be to be effective and how likely is that?

Alonso – the gaelic thing was merely exploiting the concept of precedence and worse case scenarios. And I’m afraid you were the one that said the fence was to keep people/dogshit/bottles out, not the ball in. So a gaelic pitch would also need a fence. They have nets behind the goals, but they’re separate to a fencing system. Aside from that, I get what you’re saying. I think you and I won’t agree on this one, but I appreciate your comments. They’re valid arguments, and the same discussion we’re having about this development has happened in the local community.

Blisterman – I’m going to point back to these quotes:

“the practical and sensible needs of the footballers conflict with a landscape which was created to serve artistic ends rather than more practical playing field purposes.”

“The utilitarian needs of the Football Club conflict with the aesthetic need to preserve the open and undisturbed serene quality of the existing landscape.”

This is the main reason why I’m against this enclosure. Discussing the appropriate percentage of a public space best given exclusively to sporting clubs is probably going nowhere. The other reason I’m against it is the planning method.

I still believe the whole thing should have been open to a public planning process. It wasn’t. My initial post was pointing out a legal, but questionable, application route. To give a slightly comparable example – the infamous Metropanel applications were also questionable, and also refer to “public” places, but were (afaik) legal. Because of Deerpark and Metropanel, I have zero faith remaining in the planning system in this country. I know they had some beauties before that, but those two were my straw/camel-spine.

If anyone wants to continue this discussion, they should perhaps concentrate on whether or not a private entity should be able to fence off an area of a park/public space that had been open to the public for decades. I’d be interested in hearing opinions on that matter. If you don’t know Deerpark, please refer to the quotes above and take them to be accurate. My map thingy isn’t half as good as those quotes, and I also made the box bit too small (then didn’t saved a layered file – duh). And feel free to discuss how important is it to ALWAYS save a layered file, no matter how throwaway you think the job is.

fjp i would only agree with fencing off a public space if it was to provide an enhanced public facility open to the local sports clubs and schools. Although there is a slight correlation with the Decaux scheme, the substance of both are very very different. I also object to your statement that this was not a “public” planning application. It was. And i’m still dubious as to how successful your objections would’ve been via a Part 8 process in any case. Have you any flavour for the direction the politicians were heading?

Guys isn’t it great that there is an area of Dublin where the needs of active Vs passive recreation can provoke such nuanced debate? Bit of perspective please. Would love to have the same dilemma in D5. FWIW I would be on Alonso’s side of the debate. Participation in organised sport is dropping across all socio-economic groups so the strategic needs must prevail, plus if it becomes such an intrusion upon the amenity of residents it can be relatively easily removed compared to other built environment provision.
The issue of sharing facilities with neighbouring sporting groups is a very valid one. I would favour no exchequer funding for any sporting body not willing to share fully or partially publically funded facilities, but then we can have a debate about how such facilities are perceived to be provided at the largesse of our glorious elected reps…

ah yes tommyt, the old Garden City of Mount Merrion will never lose it’s leafy nature, fenced or unfenced.

I agree that JCDecaux are the devil, and that the correlation is slight.

The “public planning process (Part 8)” is apparently different to a “normal” public planning application. It requires (afaik again) studies or consultation with the community before going ahead. The pitch application was made in the same manner as a house extension.

Regarding the politician’s flavour – I have no idea. On paper a sports ground always seems fantastic, but part of the problem here is that Mount Merrion has a reasonably mature population, many of whom use the park for (tommyt’s reference of) passive recreation. Normally an enhanced sports facility would have very few objectors, but this park is used passively by a large proportion of the community who do not want such a large area made exclusively active.

I know what tommyt means about this not being a really big deal, but I for one will be very sorry at this loss of open space (coz i’m on the passive side of the force). I have to say that I don’t really believe that once a structure is put in place in Dublin it’s ever removed easily, but a fence certainly isn’t as bad as other forms of structures. Re D5 – yes, this park is a gem, and that’s why people don’t want it changed in what they perceive to be a negative direction.

Just on a side note – I know you guys are in favour of the footy, but I also know that there’s some point at which each you would agree with me regarding the theory of this point. If there was a theoretical park in each of your minds with a football pitch on it, then that theoretical park would have a threshold of size at which each of you would say; “nah, that’s too small a park to put up a bloody great fence in”.

This development does indeed take a big slice of the open area, more than it seems from the map.

I think that the Muslim School also make some use of the playing field at the top of Bird Avenue which belongs to the Marists and is/was used by CUS. This is far far closer to them than the Deerpark site is.

There are plenty of pitches there, not all weather of course. There are long standing, but unexecuted, plans to build traveller housing and (what else) apartments on this site.

@dc3 wrote:

I think that the Muslim School also make some use of the playing field at the top of Bird Avenue which belongs to the Marists and is/was used by CUS. This is far far closer to them than the Deerpark site is.

Indeed. I would be sceptical of claims by sports clubs that if they just get what they want, (in regards to the planning permission, or a grant, etc.) that other bodies will be able to benefit from it, too.

In my experience of these matters, once the club in question has what it wants, often these plans can come to naught …(“we wanted to have the little Muslim school-children in, we really did, but it turns out that it would have been too expensive for the insurance, see…terribly sorry”…)

So I would not be embarrassed into dropping my opposition to these works on the basis that half the schoolkids in south Dublin are due to benefit from this – the truth is, they probably aren’t.

Also, it strikes me that there is already a huge amount of private sports grounds within a five minute walk from Deerpark – Kilmacud Crokes, Oatlands College, UCD, Mount Anville, the sports grounds behind Ardilea Downs, etc., but no other decent public park.

I do not see how any argument could be made that taking land from the public park should be the first (or even the second or third option) to provide land for the Mount Merrion Soccer club in this particular area (it would be different if we were talking about Dublin 3, say, where there is genuinely little amenity space.

@fjp wrote:

The “public planning process (Part 8)” is apparently different to a “normal” public planning application. It requires (afaik again) studies or consultation with the community before going ahead. The pitch application was made in the same manner as a house extension.

.

The only substantial difference is that the Councillors decide on Part 8 schemes, as the Local Authority itself is the de facto applicant. Unless the development requires an EIS, I think, where An Bord Pleanala decides – ie a road scheme. It requires the same amount of studies as a normal application and must tick pretty much all the same boxes. Consultation comprises an ad in the paper and the files on display in the COuncil offices – pretty much identical to normal planning except the ad will not sit with the list of Planning Notices in the press. It will be more obvious in general.

That’s the limit of my understanding of Part 8. There may be inaccuracies and details missing, but I wouldn’t be overly reliant on the process being any more just, fair or transparent than the normal application process. Do you trust untrained politicians more than qualified professionals?

EDIT – on the substantive point, we who support it may be wrong. we’re judging on the principle alone and not the detail. We have not carried out site visits (not since my U-15 days) or examined the application. So don’t take my judgement above as a definitive one 😉

Alonso – this is where my lack of knowledge re planning kicks in. The only statement I can make re Part 8 (aside from the quote above), is that the original (domain expired)site mentioned an assurance from an official body that no other applications of this type would be made in this manner. I tend to percieve this sort of statement to be an admission that the original method was dodgy as hell. I’d much rather some-one in a more capable position could provide a better answer to your query.

Re trusting politicians or persons qualified in planning – holy crap, that’s a tough one. Honestly, I think I trust neither. I’d probably trust the politicians even less, but I’ve certainly no confidence in any planning decisions made regarding Dublin City. That’s a sorry statement to have to make, but I feel that planning in Dublin generally appears quite unplanned…

@alonso wrote:

We have not carried out site visits (not since my U-15 days)

I carried out a ‘site visit’ on Monday afternoon. I’m not getting into the details of the arguments above – essentially, I see the logic on both sides – but one thing I would add is that, as mentioned, the map above really doesn’t give a fair impression of the extent of the area to be fenced off. The topography of the park is generally quite sloping, except for the pitch areas, and the location of this part means it reads almost like the reception room of the park. It’s also the most sheltered part, and appeared to be the most used part while I was there (maybe fjp has the troops mobilised around the clock? :D).

Even if the area to be fenced is as small as illustrated above, the residual parts of the pitch around the perimeter of the fence would be rendered unusable, so the effect would be the same as fencing all of it.

On a personal note, the redevelopment would seem to require the removal of one of my favourite suburban benches. Such memories…