A chara, – The vision and creativity shown by the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company’s master plan for our wonderful harbour in Dún Laoghaire is certainly commendable and, in stark contrast to the plethora of previous planning proposals for the harbour and the town. It is environmentally and socially sensitive to the area, its heritage and the local community.
Like most towns and cities around the county, Dún Laoghaire is suffering very badly in this current recession, with many business closures and high unemployment. But few towns of comparable size have been subjected to a similar litany of disastrous town planning, traffic management and parking control decisions by their local authority. Each of these decisions has, in turn, dealt a severe blow to the town of Dún Laoghaire – from the closure of the town centre to traffic during and after the realignment of the main street in the late 1990s for approximately six years, to the imposition of stringent parking controls and exorbitant parking fees.
Furthermore, the heavy concentration of certain social support services, unwanted by “nimby-ists” elsewhere in the county of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, has created an atmosphere in the town centre that is seriously impacting negatively upon the image of the town and causing alarm among residents and visitors alike. Recent attempts by the county council and State agencies to establish a drop-in centre for homeless drug addicts right in the middle of a residential area, close to a playground and the public library, is yet another example of the neglect of this town by its local authority.
With such an appalling legacy of bad local governance, it is no wonder that the residents and business people of Dún Laoghaire look to this imaginative master plan for the harbour as a bright new beginning for the town, for as Caroline Hick of the Dún Laoghaire Business Association (July 12th) quite rightly points out, Dún Laoghaire “must continue to battle against negative forces if we are to succeed to breathe life back into the east coast”.
Perhaps Minister for Local Government Phil Hogan will join the good citizens of Dún Laoghaire in this “battle against negative forces” through the radical reform of local governance in Dún Laoghaire?
In the meantime, the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company’s plans may well prove to be the lifeline Dún Laoghaire so badly craves and upon which it can hope to rebuild its economy. – Is mise,