Heritage plan till 2022 is adopted
County Council will receive an additional €500,000. Under his proposal the €778,000 would go back to Bray Municipal District.
Cllr Michael O’Connor was against any variation. ‘Essentially this is suggesting that we give this crowd another chance. Since requested to pay €100,000 a year, they haven’t done so. Plus now they want us to give them until 2022. It is pretty clear that they have no intention of doing anything with the land. They are going to sell it off for a profit themselves. This will just give them time to asset strip that land at a bigger price.’
He proposed a further 12 months and if development hasn’t started in that time, the penalty kicks in again in full and all outstanding monies are paid to the local authority.
Cllr Joe Behan said that an international vulture fund Starwood Property Trust Inc was now involved.
‘They bought from Ireland’s bad banks. €30bn of taxpayers’ money was lost because of the irresponsibility of the banks. Starwood sat back and waited for the markets too improve. Now they are saying “we will pay you what we owe if you give us another five years so we can make a maximum profit”. This vulture fund wants to flip the land. They benefited from the taxpayer when they purchased the portfolio from Nama. Now they want to benefit from the Wicklow taxpayer as well.’
Cllr Jennifer Whitmore said: ‘they bought that lease and took the risk on it. It is not our responsibility to negate the loss they incurred. They are looking for the people of Wicklow to subsidise them if we sign this lease abatement.’
Cllr Pat Vance said: ‘if the building goes ahead then the people up in Southern Cross will have the shopping facilities promised to them but not delivered for over 20 years. Also the €14.4m paid for the site was astronomical, even in 2008.’
Cllr Tom Fortune said: ‘We are owed €778,000. If a business owed that to a financial institution there would be a received put in and they would be pinned to the wall. This whole deal doesn’t make any sense.’
Cllr Christopher Fox shared the reservations over the involvement of a vulture fund, but didn’t feel this was the main crux of the matter. ‘I am surprised some people are portraying this as a bad deal. We got €14.4m for a piece of land the size of a football pitch. Now a further €778,000 is the cherry on top.’
Cllr Ryan’s proposal was the first to be voted for by the elected members, with 17 in favour, 13 against and two not present. As his proposal was accepted, there was no need to vote on other proposals made. THE County Wicklow Heritage Plan 2017 to 2022 was adopted by the elected members at Monday’s meeting of Wicklow County Council after a number of public consultations were held across the county.
Five public meetings were held in libraries in Wicklow town, Arklow, Bray, Greystones and Blessington, with 32 submissions received by the Heritage Office.
At Monday’s Council meeting Deirdre Burns, heritage officer for Wicklow, outlined some of the issues raised during the public consultation process.
It is aimed under Built Heritage to develop a conservation and visitor management plan for sensitive areas. Heritage collection could be enhanced with the creation of a digital photographic archive for Bray.
The Heritage Office has been involved in a number of community archaeology events over the past couple of years, starting in Glendalough and intend to continue with similar events involving local communities.
Under Natural Heritage there is a recommendation for a conservation assessment of Wicklow County Council lands ad the possible development of a nectar-trail.
Cllr Steven Matthews said: ‘I would like to thank Deirdre and her team for all their work. There are some fantastic objectives in the plan and they are all deliverable as well.
The councillors voted to adopt the Heritage Plan.