[Fiachra2]

Originally Posted by pixbyjohn

Who is putting this motion forward Fiachra ?

The motion is in the names of Grainne McLoughlin and George Jones. It will have the full support of Tom Fortune. So three of four local councillors will support the motion and it is to be hoped that the fouth (Derek Mitchell) will not oppose it.

With that level of support it has a very realistic chance of being passed. The only opposition will probably be from the county manager who wont want to comply.

[snowman224]

Excuse my ignorance but why would anyone oppose or not support this motion?

[Fiachra2]

Originally Posted by snowman224

Excuse my ignorance but why would anyone oppose or not support this motion?

A number of local public representatives have held the view that there is no need to tidy up the area or to open the harbour to the public. At a recent town council meeting three of the members voted against a similar motion. In summary their view is that:

• The harbour is substantially complete. This represents a huge gain for the people of Greystones and they should be satisfied and not want any more.
• The developer has lost his shirt on the project and the people of Greystones should have pity for him and not require him to spend any more money.
• The project is a work in progress and will be finished in due course (albeit that might be quite a few years). We should all be patient

Examples of the thinking can be found here
http://www.greystonesguide.ie/harbou...e-development/

and here
http://www.greystonesguide.ie/hayden...iable-demands/

The project manager on Wicklow county Council would appear to share these views. At a recent harbour liaison committee meeting he reacted very angrily to a question from a member of GUBOH asking how long the Council were prepared to leave the harbour in its present unsightly condition.

The rationale behind this position seems somehat bizarre to most of us but they hold it nontheless

[mango salsa]

Live captioning here

http://www.seewritenow.ie/Data.aspx

http://www.wicklow.ie/apps/wicklowbe...y/Caption.aspx

[snowman224]

Thanks for the answer Fiachra.
I wouldn't be terribly sympathetic towards that opinion but I guess they're entitled to it.
Hopefully Grainne gets a result today.

[The Durutti Column]

Originally Posted by mango salsa

Live captioning here

http://www.seewritenow.ie/Data.aspx

http://www.wicklow.ie/apps/wicklowbe...y/Caption.aspx

That worked very efficiently. I couldn't see a thing...

[The Durutti Column]

Originally Posted by snowman224

Thanks for the answer Fiachra.
I wouldn't be terribly sympathetic towards that opinion but I guess they're entitled to it.
Hopefully Grainne gets a result today.

They never even reached the item on the agenda... But it's back on next month's agenda. Gives some time to lobby CCs.

[The Durutti Column]

Originally Posted by The Durutti Column

They never even reached the item on the agenda... But it's back on next month's agenda. Gives some time to lobby CCs.

Yeah, well here's a comment from the GUBOH FB page I simply must share with you and endorse:

What has been so frustrating over the last 13 months is the utter lack of urgency displayed by Sispar, WCC officials and the rest.

This time last year we asked Sispar/WCC to show a bit of 'Yes, we can' and get the harbour open to the public for the summer. Did they get their rear in gear? NO! It was 'No, we can't'.

The harbour did not open until Guy Fawkes Day.

Last January the Mayor of this town asked them to come to the next Harbour Liaison Committee meeting with a Plan B to provide more improvements and get more amenities for the community and for visitors.

He said, rightly, that we had been waiting long enough for the word from NAMA, word that might never come, and that it was high time an interim, temporary plan for landscaping the ghost site was implemented.

Mayor Fortune specifically asked that this be prepared so the work could be done for summer 2012.

Did WCC and Sispar spring into action? NO. They ignored him.

It had to go to a Town Council meeting, in March, when the councillors, to give them credit where it's due, voted 6 to 3 to send a list of proposals to Sispar.

Did Sispar reply with alacrity? NO.

They proposed to come and speak to the councillors at this month's meeting on 29 May, TWO WHOLE MONTHS later and a few days before the school holidays start and well into summer already.

So now we have an urgent resolution postponed to June at Wicklow Co Co level, and Sispar turning up, with or without Plan B, five months after they were asked for a Plan B.

I could say something very rude and very heartfelt about these people — but I won't...

[Cheeky Chops]

Originally Posted by The Durutti Column

They never even reached the item on the agenda... But it's back on next month's agenda. Gives some time to lobby CCs.

You don't need to lobby me I am in agreement!

Seriously, this has gone past a farce.

Shame on our local government. Shame on the people WE elected to represent US.

[Fiachra2]

Letter in yesterdays Wicklow Times


Dear Madam,

Coastcare is an international organisation, affiliated to Tidy Towns and An Taisce and I am the local Coastcare representative.

The Council and Sispar waxed lyrical in last week's Wicklow Times. In fact. not fiction, the harbour development has been a disaster for Greystones - whereas formerly it was possible to walk easily to the North beach, and for children to fish from the harbour wall, there is now a kilometre-long, concentration camp-like walk to reach the North beach. There it will be found that the character of the cliff has been destroyed for a considerable distance and replaced by an unsightly heap of rocks - destroying the former nesting site of the sandmartin which had been displaced just prior to Bray Head.

The 'development' has destroyed the flowering sites of two rare plants - the sand leek and the sea cabbage - and the rest of the flowers that formerly bloomed along the beach.

To add to this destruction, it is no longer possible to approach the beach via the site of the former gap bridge. It is extremely perilous to attempt the present approach unless one is an intrepid youngster. The only people who have benefited from this development are members of the boat club and there's still no date available as to when the marina will be opened - this year; next year; sometime; never...

Yours sincerely,

Ken Baker (Emeritus Professor)

[Fiachra2]

Sispar will attend the Town Council meeting on Tuesday 29th May in the Town Council offices at 7.30.

It will be an opportunity to hear how they propose to respond to the mounting pressure on them from the public representatives as well as the general public to restore the harbour area.

For those interested in this matter it would be a good idea to attend. If nothing else the last meeting was entertaining!

[Fiachra2]

A statement from Tom Fortune. Mayor of Greystones

http://www.greystonesguide.ie/sispar...-unacceptable/



I am very disappointed with the recent response from Sispar to a letter sent by Greystones Town Council regarding the state of the stalled harbour development. In December 2011, at a Harbour Liaison Committee, meeting I advised the Sispar representative that, as there was clearly no prospect of the project being completed in the near future, it was important to prepare a “plan B” that would leave that harbour area in an acceptable condition and would promote tourism in the town. Sispar failed to respond to this request and as a result, the matter came before the Town Council who agreed to forward a simple set of requests to Sispar. These requests were intended to address the dereliction of the area around the harbour and included:
Grading and seeding of the area to the north of the harbour
Opening of the North wall
Removal of all unnecessary fencing and in particular the opening of the area earmarked for the community clubs to be used as a public space and possibly for boat storage.
Provision of some form of moorings or marina spaces as a matter of urgency and accessible points for visiting pleasure and fishing craft to moor and go ashore.

I believe these are all reasonable measures which could be put in place to restore the area as an amenity for the community until such time as the property market recovers sufficiently to allow the completion of the whole project.

The response for Sispar was most unsatisfactory.
They gave no commitment as to when they might complete the project.
They failed to respond to the request regarding immediate access to the harbour for both residents and boat owners.
They rejected the request to landscape the area in the interest of public amenity and tourism

Most alarmingly the only concession they made was to agree to review the matter at “yearly intervals” There can be no question of leaving things as they stand for a period of years. The dereliction around the harbour and at the end of the cliff walk is a crisis for the people of Greystones and must be resolved in a matter of months, not years. Sispar are to attend the May meeting of Greystones Town Council. I will be writing to them in advance of that meeting to advise them that their response is completely unacceptable to this community.

[DD9090]

There was work going on down there this evening on the closed site.

Big earth moving trucks and an earth mover with piles of soil around.

Was passing on the DART so only caught that out of the corner of my eye.

[Fiachra2]

Interestingly they have been accumulating topsoil for a few days now in the area which they have heretofore claimed they will not landscape .
Maybe there is something afoot, but if Sispars own statements are to be believed nothing will happen in the immediate future.

[pixbyjohn]

North Beach area Greystones, May 2012 by pixbyjohn, on Flickr