The iconic Peace Bridge in Derry/Londonderry has taken the top prize in the National Planning Awards.
The Bridge, designed to link both banks of the River Foyle, took the Overall Award along with the former British Army Ebrington Barracks in a project submitted by the Ilex Regeneration Company.
The other category winners were: SEA Monitoring Scheme by South Dublin County Council; Grand Canal Square in Dublin Docklands by Dublin Docklands Development Authority; Individual student project "Rights to Roam, Rights of Way and the Common Good -- Public Rights over Private Land in Ireland" by Louise Burn UCD and the Group Project titled the "Balbriggan Development Plan" by Thirty Two First Year MRUP Students, UCD.
Read the article @ The Irish Independent
www.buckplanning.ie
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Doughnut effect rips Limerick's retail heart out
THE GOOD NEWS for Limerick is that department store Brown Thomas has no plans to pull out of the city centre, despite on-going speculation that it is about to do just that. The bad news is that there seems to be no easing in the pressures – from poor planning decisions and the recession – on the city centre. “Limerick is a classic example of the ‘doughnut’ effect, with all the development going to the outskirts,” says Mark Allen, a director of Allens, which has recently opened a gift and homeware store in Limerick city centre.
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Farmer fined for destroying ring fort
A JUDGE has imposed a fine of €25,000 on a farmer in north Kerry for irretrievably destroying an ancient ring fort on lands he had bought just two months earlier. Ownership of property was a right, but this right was “not unfettered” and it was qualified by the fact that property was held in trust for the culture of the country, the judge warned. Imposing the “significant penalty”, Judge Carroll Moran said he was taking into consideration a second charge of the destruction of a souterrain, or ancient underground passage, associated with the fort on lands occupied by John O’Mahony (64) at Clashmealcon, Causeway, in February 2008.
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Planners urged to consider other sites
AN BORD Pleanála urged the children’s hospital developers to include a consideration of alternative locations for the hospital as part of their planning application, documents released to the public yesterday show. Notes from a pre-consultation meeting, marked “private and confidential”, between the planning board and the Children’s Hospital of Ireland Foundation Ltd on December 2nd, 2010, show the developers did not intend to address alternative sites as part of an environmental impact assessment.
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Expenses for Mater hearing at €300,000
HEARING: EXPENSES INCURRED by An Bord Pleanála and third parties for the oral hearing on the rejected Mater children’s hospital plan will cost the hospital’s development board almost €300,000. Bills sent to An Bord Pleanála, to be forwarded to the Children’s Hospital of Ireland Foundation Ltd, the company that lodged the application, included the cost of soup, sandwiches and taxis for some local residents. An Bord Pleanála has claimed total chargeable costs of over €200,000. The figure includes more than €190,000 for “inspectors’ time” on the oral hearing and pre-application consultation.
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Expenses for Mater hearing at €300,000
HEARING: EXPENSES INCURRED by An Bord Pleanála and third parties for the oral hearing on the rejected Mater children’s hospital plan will cost the hospital’s development board almost €300,000. Bills sent to An Bord Pleanála, to be forwarded to the Children’s Hospital of Ireland Foundation Ltd, the company that lodged the application, included the cost of soup, sandwiches and taxis for some local residents. An Bord Pleanála has claimed total chargeable costs of over €200,000. The figure includes more than €190,000 for “inspectors’ time” on the oral hearing and pre-application consultation.
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Read the article @ The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Decisions must be right, not just for right now
The response to the rejection of the planning application for the proposed National Children’s Hospital was more than intriguing.
Anybody casting even half an unjaundiced eye on the whole development could have foreseen that there were serious problems with the application. This was to be a very large national hospital bringing people in from all over Ireland to the very centre of Dublin.
During certain times of the day, the centre of Dublin and indeed most of our larger urban areas resemble large slow-moving parking lots.
Why anybody would think that building a very large-scale hospital, with the introduction of many thousands of additional car journeys, in the middle of this parking lot would do anything other than make the traffic situation even worse?
The reaction by some has been amazing. Tánaiste Eamonn Gilmore is reported to have said he would not rule out changing the law to ensure it could go ahead.
Senator John Crown, an otherwise apparently sensible individual, is reported to have compared Ireland to a banana republic and suggested that the Bord Pleanála decision should be overturned.
Ridiculing engineering, planning and architectural professionals because you do not like the decision they take, on tried and tested planning grounds, is petty.
One can only hope that these folk decrying the decision ran their mouths before they actually thought about the implications of what they were saying.
We should not forget that bending the rules, ignoring the rules or even making new rules to suit certain individuals or corporations is a large part of the reason that the Celtic Tiger bolted these shores.
It’s not for nothing that Dublin was coined the "wild west" in certain overseas financial circles. Now, when a statutory body established to ensure that professional planning and development rules and requirements are implemented and enforced fairly and without favour, the cry goes up to change the rules or ignore the findings. Do we never learn? We undermine these organisations at our peril.
There is an unquestionable need for a National Children’s Hospital. The medical fraternity, by and large, agree with the specific disciplines and expertise and the facilities that would be necessary. It should have been built years ago. If that was the only consideration, it would have been all fine and dandy, but it’s not.
If the stories are true, and given what has gone before, there is no reason to disbelieve them, certain individuals decided that this hospital should be located in the Mater. It would also appear that subsequent reviews of that decision were undertaken with terms of reference that required looking at nothing else other than a predefined decision. It was not the place to start.
Now, there are those who are saying that the planned structure should be reduced in size, scale and scope, despite the fact that only the other day they were saying that everything in the hospital is vital.
Read the article @ The Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
Anybody casting even half an unjaundiced eye on the whole development could have foreseen that there were serious problems with the application. This was to be a very large national hospital bringing people in from all over Ireland to the very centre of Dublin.
During certain times of the day, the centre of Dublin and indeed most of our larger urban areas resemble large slow-moving parking lots.
Why anybody would think that building a very large-scale hospital, with the introduction of many thousands of additional car journeys, in the middle of this parking lot would do anything other than make the traffic situation even worse?
The reaction by some has been amazing. Tánaiste Eamonn Gilmore is reported to have said he would not rule out changing the law to ensure it could go ahead.
Senator John Crown, an otherwise apparently sensible individual, is reported to have compared Ireland to a banana republic and suggested that the Bord Pleanála decision should be overturned.
Ridiculing engineering, planning and architectural professionals because you do not like the decision they take, on tried and tested planning grounds, is petty.
One can only hope that these folk decrying the decision ran their mouths before they actually thought about the implications of what they were saying.
We should not forget that bending the rules, ignoring the rules or even making new rules to suit certain individuals or corporations is a large part of the reason that the Celtic Tiger bolted these shores.
It’s not for nothing that Dublin was coined the "wild west" in certain overseas financial circles. Now, when a statutory body established to ensure that professional planning and development rules and requirements are implemented and enforced fairly and without favour, the cry goes up to change the rules or ignore the findings. Do we never learn? We undermine these organisations at our peril.
There is an unquestionable need for a National Children’s Hospital. The medical fraternity, by and large, agree with the specific disciplines and expertise and the facilities that would be necessary. It should have been built years ago. If that was the only consideration, it would have been all fine and dandy, but it’s not.
If the stories are true, and given what has gone before, there is no reason to disbelieve them, certain individuals decided that this hospital should be located in the Mater. It would also appear that subsequent reviews of that decision were undertaken with terms of reference that required looking at nothing else other than a predefined decision. It was not the place to start.
Now, there are those who are saying that the planned structure should be reduced in size, scale and scope, despite the fact that only the other day they were saying that everything in the hospital is vital.
Read the article @ The Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
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