Public servants can’t be allowed rule roost alone

THE oral hearing into Dublin City Council’s plans for a pedestrianised plaza in College Green is like watching a monumental calamity emerging in slow motion. The €10m College Civic Plaza project will lead to a ban on buses, taxis and cars entering College Green to and from Dame Street, and will feature a 32-fountain water feature. It will also beggar the capital and bring it to a standstill.

But the condescending elite proposing the project scorns anyone questioning their pet project as a philistine. And, presumably, these are the same people who licenced elongated Luas trams that overhang both sides of O’Connell Bridge and paralysed rush-hour traffic.

Some of the most evangelical proponents of the cyclist-friendly project are members of the Green Party. They cost the country billions in taxes when they cut the price of diesel fuel by 10c below the cost of petrol. And I’m sure they will ignore the irony and follow the Germans who have banned vehicles with diesel engines.

Last week Dublin City Architect Ali Grehan told a Bord Pleanála planning hearing that the civic plaza would be ‘fatally compromised’ if traffic to and from Dame Street passed through it.

She also said the plaza fitted into the city council’s objective of encouraging more people to live in smaller homes.

We would be encouraged to spend more time outside if we had more and better-quality public amenity space, seems to be the belief. Better weather would help too. ‘People-friendly public space is an essential prerequisite for a successful compact city,’ she said.

PAUL Keogh, the architect leading the design team, said it would be ‘culturally irresponsible’ not to remove traffic because it would compromise the 32-fountain water feature. And worse: ‘winter ice-skating’ and ‘summer beach parties’ would be prohibited, he said.

An Taisce joined the cycling lobby to make a submission saying the proposal would enhance the historic space around Dame Street. There is a clear hierarchy here, with pedestrians and cyclists on top and commuters in cars and buses at the bottom.

Town planner Tom Phillips, who represented Arnotts and Brown Thomas, two of the city’s most prestigious retailers, told An Bord Pleanála the project was like ‘cutting off a key artery and standing back to see what happens’.

That potential shoppers would look at the obstacles and say: ‘Hump that, I’m going off to do my shopping in Dundrum.’

More ominously, Mr Phillips said if An Bord Pleanála did not approve the plan Owen Keegan, chief executive of Dublin City Council, would use the Road Traffic Act to get the project through.

UP to 145 buses an hour would move through Parliament Street at peak times poisoning the air and closing retailers if the proposed design of the College Green civic plaza goes ahead. Groups as disparate as taxi drivers, people with disabilities and Richard Guiney of Dublin Town, an organisation representing retailers, are all asking An Bord Pleanála to halt the proposed city plaza juggernaut.

What if An Bord Pleanála refuses planning permission for the civic plaza and the unelected chief executive of Dublin City Council decides to ram the project though via the Road Traffic Act?

I say it is an imperative that our democratically elected Government puts manners on appointed public servants – especially the city father-knows-best chosen one.