Dublin City Council’s plans for a €10 million pedestrianised plaza on College Green have been halted this morning, following a ruling from An Bord Pleanála. The ruling comes amid concerns about the “significantly negative impacts” for traffic in the city centre.
The council originally applied for permission for the plan 18 months ago. If it had been given the go-ahead, it would have seen a pedestrian and cycle plaza built in the space and all traffic banned from accessing Dame St through College Green. However, the plan faced opposition from businesses in the area and from Dublin Bus. Dublin Bus labelled the project – which would have restricted buses accessing the plaza – as “socially regressive”.
Trinity had also expressed concerns about the impact of the plaza on the campus community. In correspondences between Dublin City Council and Trinity, obtained in a freedom of information request by The University Times, College officials laid out several areas of concern including the possibility of flooding, the increased footfall into College and lack of access to Trinity’s buildings.
Speaking to The University Times last year, Veronica Campbell, the College Bursar, said that the College is trying to find “a balance between the use and the aesthetics of the College plaza”.
According to the Irish Times, an Bord Pleanála said this morning that the plan was refused due to the “significant adverse impacts on pedestrians and on bus transport within the city centre”.
Admitting there was “uncertainty” about what the actual effects would be to public transport, the board said it was likely to be “significantly negative”.
“In the light of the scale of re-routing of buses proposed, the critical importance of bus transport to the city, and its future role in facilitating modal shift from public car usage, in line with national policy”, it said.
The board was also critical of the data collected by the council. Noting this at the meeting, it said that the traffic analysis carried out by the council was unsatisfactory and said it was not “sufficient to accurately quantify the traffic impacts of the proposed development and the magnitude of those impacts”.
The ongoing congestion issues on the quays, where it was proposed traffic would be re-routed to, were also of concern to the board. Other issues with the quays included a failure to “demonstrate that the existing footpaths on both sides of the Quays have the capacity to accommodate the increased numbers of pedestrians that would be re-directed onto the Quays as a result of bus re-routing”.
Original dates for the project would have seen construction begin in January 2018 but it has been hit by a series of roadblocks. Planning for the project began in 2015 and the board were due to issue a decision on the space in November last year. However, a large number of appeals from the public and Dublin Bus spurred the board to hold a public hearing. Further postponement occurred because of errors in a newspaper notice. When the meeting eventually occurred in March, it took three weeks rather than the three days allocated.
Trinity have been involved in the consultation process since the beginning. In an email from May 2016 to the Executive Manager of the Environment and Transportation Department in Dublin City Council, Pat McDonnell, Deputy Director of Buildings in Estates and Facilities, said that Trinity is “broadly supportive” of the proposed changes to College Green. The planned 7,300 square metre plaza would have seen 15,000 people descending on the space. Existing statutes would have been repositioned, and a new water sculpture will also be installed, with trees, benches and cycle routes also added.
