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Very true PVC KIng,and DCC took very recent action to ensure that Public Transport useage of Capel Street would be well nigh impossible given that parking bays and assorted other impediments now abound
Retail has changed; paint is now sold from retail parks at the edge of cities; parking in Capel Street has no other rationale other than DIY enthusiasts and tradesmen loading paint pots. Capel Street needs to be handed over to DB as the main Southbound route for 16-22 etc to free
up O’Connnell St.I have also for a long time past suggested Jervis Street as offering a great set of Bus Laning possibilities,given that it allows just as easy access to the Henry/Mary Street shopping souks,as well as being adjacent to the Dublin Bus Strand Street Terminal site,now sadly moribund
I agree that this route could take a lot of strain currently borne by OCS and Aston Quay/Bachelors Walk.
The prize could be a pedestrianised / Luas only Central Bank to Parnell Square
The M3 serves Navan, Kells, Cavan and a little of South Donegal; all very far from urban. “the m/n3 caters for possibly 50000 or more in south & west donegal, 57000fermanagh, 64000cavan
But excluding the very rare All Ireland Days these counties qualify when do these people actually go to Dublin? Peter Howick in the Herald wrote a hillarious article on toilet paper in pubs on the then N3 being removed anytime Cavan had a date in Croker!! These areas pre bust had their own very successful economies based on local employers and FDI investments which were in the main self sustaining.
Clearly the most ill conceived Motorway in the country; Meath already had 2 motorways.
Seeing Alan Dukes saying that a second toxic bank should be retained made my blood run cold. When one looks at the Tallaght Strategy of the late 1980’s and what that meant in terms of logical pragmatic non-partisan politics moving to 2010 when his stance has moved to suggesting that the tax-payer should collect bad banks.
Now is a very good time to work out priorities accross all areas.
Alek
Great to see you back on the forum, as a transport practitioner your insights are always welcome in this forum.
I use the Turnapin section of the M1 as the benchmark for the success or otherwise of road schemes; when you have hit 100,000 movements a day you have hit a viable road; granted there will be sections on intra-urban routes that don’t need to hit those figures but for localised schemes those are the type of numbers you need. The M3 serves Navan, Kells, Cavan and a little of South Donegal; all very far from urban.
Assuming the road were tendered as a scheme with planning (the post ABP situation on M3 was understandable but equally immature) where you got the land take but had to build and operate the road with all the toll income going to the infrastructure fund but no government subsidy. There is no way that it would have been built.
Ask your yourself the same of both interconnector and Metro; with interconnector there are spin off benefits of doubling capacity on 5 existing lines. On metro Mitsui as a freebie has left the building; forgetting exotic (toxic) funding structures and breaking it back to pure R i.e. the risk free rate as denoted by Government bonds and the annual interest bill is probably €150m per year once bond rates settle down at roughly 5%; should a more negative scenario persist (unlikely) this would be €200m p.a. and all that assumes the project comes in on budget.
In terms of either €3bn in terms of a wide and varied Luas network or €150m a year for more buses to feed the 5 existing rail lines and 2 Luas lines you could acheive infinately more than this over-specified vanity project.
@The Denouncer wrote:
Superb news. Living in Swords for the last 8 years I can only say the transport is RUBBISH, having to drive to Donabate to get a train or sitting on a bus for an hour and a half. Its about time the Northside got something. The Southside has the Luas and QBC, as well as the DART of course. Now I’ll have to listen to the ANTI-EVERYTHING brigade who are helping to spiral this country into depression, and the WHINGERS and the BEGRUDGERS who are up their own ARSES. We HAVE to build this and generate jobs and generate growth, and give something to the Northside.
Your location explains why you would want to see this built; the northside argument is total rubbish; one of my best mates lived in Rolestown until he moved the the US a few years ago; when visiting him I would take Dart to Malahide and 10 mins after alighting dart I was in his kitchen; this was evening peak.
To say the Northside has no connections is rubbish; it has Dart, and Commuter Rail and a number of QBC’s
I am happy to be termed a WHINGER and a BEGRUDGER; because so was anyone in Ireland who saw that the M3 would be a white elephant, one off housing would be a disater.
This now has planning consent but don’t forget so did the M3 and look at what a flop that has proved to be; in all but Ghost Estates it lacks the numbers.
What is required is an election so that the people can make their decisions on how very scarce resources can be divied out to create a recovery; project funding models like this did Argentina in 2002 and Greece in 2010; be afraid be very afraid
Double Take with Frank McDonald and Ciarán Cuffe
It’s time to cut our cloth on these mega transport schemes and the Dart Underground offers far better value, writes FRANK McDONALD
I wonder will the list of tender parties actively pursuing this be named or is that a secret as well?
If there is an unwillingness to update the cost-benefit studies, then the projects need to be officially suspended, and expenditure on consultants and planning postponed; otherwise taxpayers’ money to the tune of millions of euro is being wasted.â€
Hammer nail head
Macquarie shakes up infrastructure team
Australian group cuts jobs, fund life, and fees
Bumpy road forces Macquarie to switch focusA tax on stupidity is spelled tax this extends to groups of idiots who pay tax; taxes aimed at a single property have an E as do multiple forms of tax which are referred to as taxes..
For once I am in agreement with a Parlonesque release; stamp duty should go to Vegas for a while; this should also see stamp duty on equities fall from twice the UK figure currently 1% on ISEQ vs 0.5% on LSE/Plus; a rate of 0.25% would give listed companies another reason to move to Ireland beyond corporation tax; a lot of volume in WPP, Diageo etc. If there were enough listed companies making the switch an ISEQ ETF that was successful would benefit all existing listed companies on ISEQ.
Speed up or slow down; it rerminds me of the system in Santiago wherer rival bus companies have scouts on the route who hold up the number of fingers that signify the number of minutes since a rival companies bus has passed; crazy crazy drivers. RTPI is a great step forward and in tandem with adding more QBCs and tram lines to places like the airport will give passengers a much more balanced and reliable system
Adrian
There is never an excuse for vandalism but the number of vandalised phone boxes and bus shelters indicates that many punters don’t need a festival to destroy civic furniture; its just more prevalent on one night of year. Prevention (Removal) is better than constant cure.
Tayto is bang on the money; Secondary glazing units are certainly best practice in conservation terms, could be a little tricky on a bay window depending on the proportions between the angled and flat elevations; the only issue I would look at is fire escape can the existing windows be opened quickly enough if you need an unplanned exit?
Clearly a good time to be looking for new windows; I wouold get a professional architect or building surveyor to draw up a specification to be put to tender to 2-3 window companies to ensure that you are balancing both energy efficiency, price and longevity.
In London when real time displays were added they used the excuse to erect very many more bus shelters where previously much smaller poles existed; ask yourself which creates a much larger scale clutter. What DB have done on this is provide stand alone bus stops that can provide real time information independent of Bus shelters which lets be honest are an antiquated concept.
I would suggest that funding for the renovation of existing bus shelters when next vanadalised should be axed from the budget. Sadly the height of the display information can be directly linked to the collapse in behavioural standards over the past decade; St Pats night in town anyone?
If you want to see a real scandal on bus signage go no further than Waterloo Road Dublin 4 where DCC were obligated to errect large unsightly ‘National Development Plan’ signs at a scale beffitting a motorway sign in return for some minor works that equated to QBC; don’t the NDP and FF logos look suspiciously alike?
Agreed on the bus sign the lack of rails in combination with the digital display does convey the mode one can expect to arrive;on the specific design it is crisp and a lot fresher than those in London.
I don’t think he can walk away from this his mandate was to regulate development; lets look at who failed in the creation of ghost estates
1. The developers – they over-estimated demand – they are mostly insolvent and have therefore mostly paid the price.
2. The banks – there was no-one watching what other lenders had already funded in terms of competing schemes – they have been mostly nationalised and their shareholders have paid the price.
3. The councils – Meath being a prime case in point in re-zoning enough land for centuries of real demand but assumed to be developed in 5 -10 years – there are elections coming and many of these clientist councillors will most certainly pay the price
4. The minister – who failed to read any of the new development plans whilst these crazy revisions were not only approved but praised for removing ‘blockages in the system’ or if he did read the plans didn’t possess the analytical ability to understand the basis of land markets. He has yet to pay the price, still holds office and if rejected by Wicklow electorate gets to inflict his clear shortcomings on the UCD student body who we hope to become the next generation of captains of industry and entrepreneurs.
Where is the equity in that?
@wearnicehats wrote:
A person near where I live knocked a big house and built three smaller ones. 1 remains unsold. By the terms of this typically shoddy RTE reporting I now live near a “ghost estate”.
The – effectively 1 page – report itself is meaningless statistics – it would fail a first year geography student. You cannot lump developments that are 99% complete in with those 10% complete.
It is hardly empirical however it did show county by county breakdowns and that was useful; what in God’s name was Dick Roche doing when all of these planning applications were being approved in places like Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim; locations that could clearly never bear that level of supply without a catastrophic crash?
@CologneMike wrote:
Dan, it looks like Cllr. Gilligan got his heritage organisations (Irish Georgian Society) mixed up regarding the Opera Centre and sadly he as a city councillor ignored some blatant flaws like its proposed delivery entrance. 😮
That is possible but the fact remains that he said what he said, and he was on air on Live95 yesterday it appears saying the same thing again.
If he comes out and is man enough to correct the record and apologise then fair enough but as it is he is slashing out at people who didn’t do what he claims they did.
I totally agree that the conventional social housing model has failed utterly when benchmarked against housing trusts such as Peabody, Look Ahead or Iveagh. You got to love Mayfair with its probably close to 1,000 housing trust units being able to project an image of global exclusivity whilst having a varied social mix on income grounds.
here is no point in farting around with a strategy on foreclosure
I hear what you are saying, but my view is somewhat different, foreclosure for the sake of foreclosure solves little if there are no net assets to foreclose i.e. take total debt with vehicles with inter-linked obligations and limited if any personal guarantees.
My view of the key problem is wider than just ghost estates and it is that shareholders in management companies in large developments have limited protection; this issue is a lot more obvious when an insolvent developer holds say 40-50% of the voting rights due to not being able to shift the units. This sector needs to be regulated to protect people regardless of the ghost estate issue which throws up a quantum of hard case examples for the negative equity generation.
I have a feeling that Nama to date has been very much reacting to events and viewed as a holding vehicle pending assessment of their portfolio. Once the assessment has been carried out they will need to beef up their resources to deal with many urgent and pressing issues such as ghost estates. To many Nama is perceived to have been a bail out for the banks, if structured and resourced properly Nama could do a lot of good to mitigate the unforgivable mandate they were handed thanks to FF & F & F and lets not forget the FR
Respond to comments by Cllr Gilligan re: An Taisce/Opera Centre and the Boundary Extension, I’ve sent this to the press already but I suspect it won’t be printed in its entirety.
Cllr. Gilligan
I am writing with regard to your reported comments in the debate about the Limerick Local Government Committee report.
Specifically I have to take issue with the content of the paragraph that states “Independent councillor John Gilligan criticised the “ugly sisters” who supported Mr Brosnan’s recommendations. He said heritage group An Taisce take a “we know better than you” attitude, and they are “the main reason” why the Opera Centre has not got under way.“ and also the claim that we gave a complete endorsement to the LGC report and were acting as the LGC’s ugly sister. I will take this in 3 parts the Opera Centre, the Brosnan Report and your unwarranted criticism of a voluntary organisation in your city whose only remit, where Limerick city is concerned, is the perseveration of the best aspects of the city and its sustainable development for everyone that lives and works here.
Opera Centre
The An Taisce Limerick Association did not object to the Opera Centre at any stage in its application and we are certainly are not the main reason why it has not got underway. I’m sure I don’t have to go into the in and outs of the ownership of the Opera Centre, the saga of Anglo-Irish Bank, or the travails of great recession. The fact remains we are not part of any reason that the Opera Centre has not proceeded not to mind the “main reason”. That you would make this sort of wild and inaccurate statement, in a council meeting and for the public record, is very disappointing and a matter of considerable concern to us. If you have made the comments as reported in the Limerick Leader then we would expect that you would seek to correct the record at the earliest possible opportunity and ensure that they receive a degree of publicity at least equal to the original comments.
With respect to the original application reference number 05548 by Regeneration Developments the An Taisce Limerick Association did not make any submission to either the local authority or An Bord Pleanala.
With respect to the revised application reference number 08173 by Regeneration Developments, we made one submission in support of the development. A copy of our submission is available from the city planning department which as a city councillor I’m sure you have access to but I will include the following quotes from it for your consideration.
“We are broadly favourable to the general thrust of the development, and we believe that addressing the points outlined should allow it to proceed quickly to making a significant contribution to the city centre environment.“
“That we would be eager that the development should proceed quickly to the construction phase in accordance with the direction already given by An Bord Pleanála,” while noting “That the new design revisions are a significant improvement on the previous iteration” and that “that the increased openings onto and footfall for Patrick St. and Rutland St. are to be welcomed”.
You are free to read the rest of the submission in your capacity as a paid elected representative by requesting it from the planning department of the city council. There again, you must have done so already since you felt able to comment about it in public which begs the question of how you came to make this statement.
Brosnan Report
As regards the Bronsnan report, your claims that we, in any way, gave it 100% endorsement are also incorrect. In our submission to the LGC we said that our favoured option was a single strong city core that encompassed the entirety of the urban areas of the city, our boundaries were roughly contiguous with the boundaries the city council had previous indicated in its own representations to the minister and if anything were more extensive. This is detailed in our submission which is on the LGC website. I’m sure that you would as a paid elected representative passing comment on our position will have taken the time to read it. We did not suggest that the city and county be merged, in fact the opposite we suggested that if the LGC had a difficulty with a reduced Limerick County that it should be merged not with the city but with Clare and North Tipperary to form a hinterland authority. This received considerable public comment and reaction especially from Clare and Tipperary, you would have been aware of this too.
In speaking with the press after the Brosnan report was released, we noted that it did not deliver what we had wanted in it. We also noted that while it did not fulfil our ambitions for the city that nevertheless there were potentially positive aspects of the report. Our focus in saying this was to ensure that no one was under the impression that the report represented a win for the county position that a single authority was takeover of the city by the county. In truth the report leans more towards suggesting a take-over of the county by the enlarged city. That almost the entirety of the body of the current city councillors appears unable to see this raises a question mark over whether they have properly read the report at all.
What support we extended to the ‘Brosnan’ report was in respect of the recognition that the status quo is not longer an option and that it offered an opportunity to move away from the status quo for all that it offered anything else. We said in speaking with the Limerick Leader that if the choice was forced on us was to remain with the status quo or the report then we would go with the report. If we had our preferred option it would be to use the proposals in our submission that would have resulted in a strong authority for the city confined to the new extended city boundaries and with automatic revisions that would ensure all new medium density development at the fringes would be included in the city boundaries without a need for new commissions into the future. Evidently if forced into a choice you and most of your fellow city councillors would choose to stay with the status quo.
Your attack on An Taisce
To suggest that An Taisce was in anyway responsible for the delay in the development of the Opera centre or that we gave a ringing endorsement to the Brosnan report is wholly wrong. I have no problem with public and robust criticism of positions that An Taisce may hold but I will not stand by as a voluntary organisation, made up of people living in Limerick and who are committed to the prosperity of the city and the region, is used as a punch bag for what it has not done and not said, purely to provide political cover for elected representatives paid for out of taxes of the general public.
I believe that you served as an excellent Mayor and have long been a committed representative of our city. However, you are also capable of being wrong and on this occasion you were seriously wrong. Your misrepresentation of the positions of An Taisce is unbecoming your position as someone serving in the council chamber. If you do not retraction your comments then it will stand on the record that when the occasion demands it you will look for the nearest, convenient, unpopular minority and aim a kick at them for your own political ends.
Yours respectfully
Daniel K. Sullivan
Chair – An Taisce Limerick Association
P.S. As regards the reference to ‘ugly sisters’, while I don’t believe either of us will be winning beauty contests in the near future I think this sort of political grandstanding and terminology undermines the seriousness with which such an issue should be treated. When every issue involves disasters, decimation and ugly sisters and the cast and crew from Beauty and the Beast, it makes it that bit harder for the public to take real matters seriously. The city deserves better from all of us.
ENDS
Link to Limerick Leader article with cllr Gilligan’s comments
http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/City-councillors-vow-to-fight.6576714.jpPress Release by An Taisce Limerick in respect of the Opera Centre development at the time permission was granted.
“An Taisce Limerick Association chair Daniel Sullivan has welcomed the decision by An Bord Pleanála to preserve in part the existing character of the north city quarter in granting planning permission for the development of the Opera Centre. “It was always on the cards that An Bord Pleanála was likely to require that the historic facades on Ellen St. be retained given that their retention had been a condition of their original decision to grant permission. We’re pleased that Regeneration Developments eventually realised this and revised their application again on foot of their interaction with An Bord Pleanála.”
We would be hopeful that Limerick city council will grasp with both hands the opportunity given by the conditions from An Bord Pleanála with regard to their approval of materials to be used in the internal and external finishes to ensure that the quality of materials used in this development is consistent with the highest possible standards. This particular application also highlights the need for a more consultative approach in development. At no point in the entire process has Regeneration Developments sought to take advice from other local organisations or interested parties such as An Taisce. Perhaps if there had there been some engagement with local interest groups it is likely the protracted delay could have avoided. And contrary to what some candidates in the recent local elections had to say, these local groups were not blocking this development but were instead seeking that it should proceed according to the best possible standards. The city deserves no less and had those views been listened to the development would have proceeded much more quickly.
We would now look forward to seeing the project progress quickly to the construction phase, bringing much need employment and activity to the city. We remain open to engaging positively with anyone that has thoughts about contributing to the reinvigoration of the city centre. We would be hopefully that this development will re-energise those thinking of revamping this quarter of the city in manner that respects what is best about what we have and makes the most of the excellent location in the heart of the city.”
@rumpelstiltskin wrote:
That should be ‘HAVE grammar and syntax been VICTIMS of the recession as well?’. Oh dear!
The S was cut in the emergency budget due to this recession.
To get this discussion back on track; what do we actually know about this proposal other than it is to be 16 storey’s high and 400-600m from Mountjoy Square?
I am very supportive of the use and if there is to be a stimulus concept then this is something that will leave a very tangiable benefit to the population and may create further growth in the life sciences area which is per capita the best industry in the World.
One must conclude that if the Chair of the development committee resigned prematurely based on the site being unsuitable and that if there are no details as to who designed it, when it will be lodged for planning and what John Gormley has to say re its fit with designation of Georgian Dublin as a World Heritage site that it is probably a non-runner that FF want for the spring election. This project was approved by Government in 2006 when funding was abundant, how did it take 4 years to get to a pre-planning application announcement.
The soldier has no clothes
you have a morbid fear of your fellow citizens
I had an e-mail exchange with a senior opposition figure in June 2007 who was very hurt by the result in that election; lets not lose sight of the fact that our fellow citizens voted in this government. You could argue that the writing was on the wall in early 2007, the credit markets certainly knew it but as a nation we were urged to binge some more, this wouldn’t happen in Sweden; in the UK you voted for more lets deregulate the markets Blair in 2005; in Scotland you;ll probably vote for more Salmon next year. I have no doubt the Irish electorate won’t make the same mistake for generations if ever; you couldn’t make up the way Ireland Inc behaved from 2005 to the present time. Really couldn’t make it up.
Current inactivity by the government, opposition and enforcement agencies is prolonging the difficulties and hindering recovery. The lack of action by the ODCE is in my mind now bordering on ineptitude
There is no legal mechanism of dealing with the viable estates in a coherent fashion. Banks who funded developers must play ball on this or they will end up with people walking away and resettling in Oz; there is a big story on foreclosures coming through in the US at the moment; a coherent strategy to deal with this sector is vital.
One other thing I would query is the inclusion of completed projects that are empty because they are overpriced. Down here, the Elysian and the estate in Shanakiel would easily sell, if they were priced to the market. But there is still an attempt to get 2007 prices for them. Knock 40% off and they would be occupied in no time.
I am amazed evertime one goes on daft.ie there are clearly motivated sellers and stock is moving; but you see people looking for prices that would have been full in 2006. The time value of money can never be underestimated.
