Council seeks tenders for plaza despite opposition
DUBLIN City Council will plough ahead and spend €6m on a pedestrian plaza at College Green despite growing opposition to its plan to ban cars from the area.
The council has not been given the go-ahead by planners to construct the controversial plaza that will ban private cars from the area outside Trinity College. Buses and taxis may be allowed, however.
A number of city centre representative bodies have opposed the development, predicting traffic gridlock due to the lack of a cogent management plan.
The council has asked companies to tender for the job of ‘a new landmark public pedestrianised space at College Green’. The plaza – the plans for which were recently published – will be built before it gets the proper go-ahead from councillors and planners.
Council management is so confident of fending off opposition, it will forge ahead with the space, which will come into use ‘following rearrangement of traffic’.
The tender, which has been seen by the Irish Mail on Sunday, says: ‘The council intends that this space is to be of outstanding civic design quality, commensurate with its status as the key focus of the historic city centre since medieval times and the ambition to create a new contemporary space which will be central to the ongoing development of the city’s historic core.’ It estimates the project’s value ‘is €6m approximately ex VAT’.
The Temple Bar Company, representing the key tourist destination adjacent to College Green, has emerged as the leading opponent of the pedestrianisation.
The MoS has also seen a letter that Temple Bar chairman and ex-minister Noel Dempsey has sent to the council in which he says he was ‘somewhat surprised’ to see the tender advertised ‘six days after the public consultation period on College Green ended’.
A council spokesman said the tender had been published due to a need to ‘progress some aspects of the project’.