Sir, – Your series The Liffey: Source to Sea over the past week or so has been an enjoyable read, with some interesting insights from those who contributed.
However, I must point out that the description of the CIÉ plans for vacant and underused space at Heuston Station as “ambitious” is far from most people’s interpretation of that word (“Heuston masterplan aims to house people along the Liffey at new gateway to Dublin city”, News, November 2nd). At a time when our city centre is crying out for a more sustainable population, to provide just 1,000 apartments in an area of over 16 hectares is nothing short of a shameful waste.
With apartments in only six storey blocks, pushed to the Clancy Quay end of the development and on the site of Conyngham Road bus garage, this is a huge underutilisation of valuable space close to the city centre. With proposed developments of up to 22 storeys on the former Hickeys site opposite the station, the successful development of 12-storey blocks at Newmarket and the nearby Grand Canal Dock, a development of six-storey apartment blocks stretches the definition of ambitious.
Many thousands more apartments could be provided across this site with a little more height and scale. Further to this, if the train lines were to be “culverted” and built over, a large-scale transport interchange could be provided, where cars could be parked allowing their occupants to swap to public transport or bicycle to continue their journey to the rest of the city, eliminating private cars from the quays.
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Now that would be ambitious. – Yours, etc,
RORY J WHELAN,
Drogheda,
Co Meath.