Swords – A viable new city?

impending arrival of the Metro North I wouldn’t hold my breath on this one – the LUAS debacle is going to be child’s play compared to this one.

introduce a university, How about looking at existing cities without universities, like Waterford? Dublin has a disproportionaly high number of Univeersities, compared to the remainder of the population.

But a disproportionately small number of IT places; I am surprised that Dublin, and urban centers in Dublin don’t look for IT’s. Why isn’t Swords asking for an IT. DIT is large, but not so much larger than CIT, WIT etc, and much of DIT is also, in reality, a univeristy. I always enjoy the expression “The ITs and DIT” which acknowledges this distinction in grant calls etc. Generally, why don’t towns campaign for IT’s, why doesn’t Kilkenny ever complain of not having one, aren’t they supposed to be a great support for local employment? Anyway, what the Swords plan called for was a “university facility”; part of one of the existing Dublin Universities, there will be two universities on the Metro line so that does not seem impossible.

Fingal County Council are absolutely daft, I cannot even think of where to start with this Swords Ciy idea, its absolutely ridiculous. :confused:

Why is it ridiculous?

Surely there is going to be a huge amount of planning pressure on Fingal in the next 20 or 30 years?

Therefore, with the prospective arrival of the Metro, I would have thought that Swords is a good a place as any in Fingal to concentrate the development?

If a town is expanding as rapidly as Swords, then the way to ensure ‘capital led, developer driven’ expansion is to do nothing and have no strategic plan. Swords should aim to be a third-tier sub-regional centre (1= Dublin, 2= Cork, 3= Navan (say)), with a wide range of facilities as indicated (agree with notjim about the need for an IT). If the Pavilions is to expand as a commercial centre for this development, it needs to integrate more with the Main Street and see itself less as a suburban mall (I know there were plans for it to do so). With a castle, a medieval church and Fingal CC offices, it is already a cut above the ordinary. But it needs more density, a rapid transit to the city via the airport, local industry and commerce (for a local employment base) and a plan. Does it even have a town council at the moment? But, go for it.

I think it’s a great idea to heve comprehensive future planning. Swords is going to expand alot over the next few years if we like it or not. The choice is here now if it turns out like a Clondalkin/Lucan style mess or a well planned urban center. At the moment, it is lacking in transport infastructure. If Swords had it’s own bus service linking Main street with surrounding housing estates and other towns in Fingal it would become much less car dependant. No offence “URbus”

Forrestreid,
In my opinion Fingal cannot even manage development in the small villages that dot the coast line north of malahide never mind building a new city. Over the last 15 years villages like Rush and Balbriggan have seen huge amounts of residential development but very little else (some call this urban sprawl!). By allowing all this development on farmland, areas like Kilbarrick have seen an exodus of younger people to such an extent that the schools there are closing whilst there is a defecit up the coast. Some control on development in these areas would have meant that Dublin City Council would have had to look seriously at densification in existing suburbs with better access to the city and much better infrastructure, social and otherwise. I think that the whole Swords idea is simply a way of glossing over the massive failures in strategic planning that they oversaw and proposals for a new Croydon or Milton Keynes seem outmoded to me. We dont need a new city in Swords we just need better services for existing areas.