The maximum payouts for damage to homes caused by MetroLink construction would be “wholly inadequate” to fix defects to protected structures on Dartmouth Square in Ranelagh, Dublin 6, residents have told An Bord Pleanála.
The compensation fund to fix homes was increased by two-thirds to €75,000 during the course of the public hearings on the line earlier this year, but payments “considerably in excess” of this amount would be required for the types of houses on and around Dartmouth Square, according to new submissions made to the board.
Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) in September 2022 applied for permission for the 18.8km MetroLink line with 16 stops from Swords in north Dublin, to Charlemont, close to Dartmouth Square.
Public planning hearings opened on February 19th of this year and closed on March 28th, but with just two days to go before the end of the hearings, board inspector Barry O’Donnell said there would be a “requirement to re-advertise” the project due to new information submitted by TII.
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TII submitted close to 200 additional documents during the hearing, including 39 on the first day. Public consultation on the additional information was reopened in August and closed earlier this month.
Just over 40 new submissions were made to the board on TII’s additional information, more than a third of which were made by residents of Dartmouth Square, Dartmouth Road and surrounding roads.
MacCabe Durney Barnes, planners acting for the Charlemont & Dartmouth Community Group said the volume of additional material submitted at the start of the hearing was so significant the board “should have suspended the process at that stage” to allow the TII to withdraw or re-advertise its application.
Several revisions were made to the property owners’ compensation scheme, with maximum payouts increased to €75,000 from €45,000. However, the residents’ planners said, this would still be “wholly inadequate” in the event of structural damage to many of the late 19th century protected structures on Dartmouth Square, where the “cost of remedial works will run to numbers considerably in excess of the maximum”.
Similar submissions were made by several individual residents in the area who contend the station should not be located in Charlemont and want the line terminated at an earlier point.
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This was also emphasised by MacCabe Durney Barnes, who cited submissions made the Metro South West group that continuing the line to Charlemont, instead of terminating it at St Stephen’s Green or earlier, prejudiced the eventual extension of the line to the southeast of city, which was already well served by rail, instead of the southwest, which was not.
In its new submission to the board, the Metro South West group said TII’s additional information ignored the inability of buses on their own to “provide anything approaching sufficient public transport in southwest Dublin” and does not take into account that BusConnects’s plans for the southwest city “simply cannot meet NTA’s own forecasts of passenger demands”.
A number of submissions were also made by residents living on the northside of the city.
Several related to the designs for the Mater hospital station, which in their scale and visual impact were “overwhelming” and “needlessly and unacceptably harmful” to the surrounding historic surroundings, residents said.
Residents along the line criticised what they said was a “document dump” during the hearing, leaving them without the opportunity to question TII directly on the new information.
An Bord Pleanála said it had yet to decide if it was “necessary or not to reopen an oral hearing”. A spokesman for TII’s MetroLink programme said: “As a responsible applicant, TII remains committed to proactive stakeholder engagement throughout the project’s life cycle.”
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