N2 - Slane Bypass [planning decision pending]

tuathal wrote: »

Planning permission was granted for the M3 that was supposed to cost 600m. By completion, it had cost 900m.

Please explain how any of this additional cost was caused by delays to the M3, when there were none.

Supposed to cost at planning permission stage means nothing, it is only based on preliminary designs. Most of the project was probably redesigned due to conditions imposed by the planning permission. Under a fixed price contract, the contractor is bound by the actual tender sum (which would be lowest of all the tenderers) and not by preliminary estimates. The increase in cost you highlight is not an overrun of the contract sum, it may have cost the contractor €1.2bn to construct the road but they are only entitled to €900m under the fixed price element of the contract.

tuathal wrote: »

Then there is the 100m extra in shadow tolling...so a billion...for a road that wasn't needed, which we will all be paying for, for the next 40 years.

AFAIK this is not an increase in cost of the project. We always had to repay the full cost of the contract, only now we have to pay some of it a little earlier than expected.

did I hear the word 'bog' again:eek:

You see I don't like unsubstantiated facts and figures being thrown around like they were confetti. In this regard I have problem with some of the posts being made by tuathal because as far as I can see a number of the facts in those posts don't stand up to scrutiny.

First we had the figure €24 billion of wastage with regard to the roads programme. When I asked for an explanation of this figure there was a bit of a backtrack. The C&AG report indicates an overspend of around €8 billion on the first phase of the road building project. Of that figure it accepts that a certain amount is due to land price inflation and expanded scopes so the figure of €8 billion which was repeated in a later post is not all wastage.

With regard to the new funding in 2007 a later post states that the NRA can spend around €8 billion of the money raised. However it should be pointed out that significant portions of this money are on programmes that weren't in the original building programme so again not all of this is wastage. So the figure of €24 billion, or subsequent quoted figure of €16 billion, of waste is complete nonsense.

Now I'm not denying that there were major cost overruns on the early stages of the road building program but from what seems to be the case in the recent past the new projects have been coming in on budget. To suddenly assume that this bypass will completely overrun on costs by a factor of 5 to 10 doesn't seem that logical to me. It will be allocated on a fixed-price basis and there is no reason to assume that it won't come in on that cost.

With regard to the potential loss of World Heritage Site status the following are the facts. The road will be 500 yards from the buffer zone, at least 1.5 km from Knowth and 4 km from Newgrange. Perhaps some people consider that too close but in terms of the actual World Heritage Site it is outside the protected zone as laid down.

A look at the report produced by UNESCO-ICOMOS in 2004 about the potential building of a waste incinerator by Indaver Ireland (http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2004/mis-659-2004.pdf) reveals the following paragraph -

3.2 Slane bypass
The mission was informed that a new bypass is planned for the village of Slane immediately west of the inscribed World Heritage site which will require the building of a new bridge over the River Boyne. This new piece of infrastructure clearly needs to be evaluated for its possible impact and the mission urges the State Party to ensure that this forms part of the Environmental Impact Statement and informs the World Heritage Centre of its outcome.

Now the EIS does take the World Heritage Site into consideration and claims that there isn't significant intrusion. I have no doubt that opponents of the plan don't agree with those claims but until a report is produced to disprove this conclusion, all we have is statements made by people who are not disinterested parties and therefore I'm not inclined to give them a huge amount of consideration irrespective of their credentials.

I don't know however if the government has passed on the results of the EIS as they were urged to do in the report and have been given the all clear on this. I can't find any information about that but one tends to hope that they did. Personally I think that if the World Heritage Centre came back to the government and said the building of the bypass would result in loss of World Heritage Status, the government would revise the plan. There is no way that they would allow this to go ahead in that instance. If those opposed to the bypass on these grounds are so sure of their case why have they not made some representation to the World Heritage Centre? It would seem to be a logical step to take. And if they have made such representations then what was the response?

I just feel that its too easy to make perjoritive or emotive statements or conjectures as fact.

Coming back to this post after a while and I have to say, I'm highly amused (sorry MYOB) to find somebody else in receipt of the "you don't agree with me, therefore you're a Fianna Fail/NRA government stooge" argument. :rolleyes:

Could all people who agree with the Slane bypass please contact me at the local Fianna Fail Cumann to sign up for membership, as it appears that Fianna Fail membership appears to be a prerequisite to actually supporting the need for this bypass?!

(Sarcasm there, in case it went over certain people's head. I am not a FF member/voter/whatever).

@Etchyed, you should be aware of some points in relation to the Unesco link which was posted. This has been posted before by Save Newgrange members to support an assertion that they make that Unesco is considering altering Bru na Boinne's World Heritage Status. Read the link - seriously. There is absolutely NO MENTION of revoking the heritage status anywhere in the document.

As an example of the way this report has been misappropriated, Vincent Salafia posted on the Save Newgrange The Facts site:

"...the inscribed area was rapidly being devalued to the point where continued inscription should be questioned."

However, it was pointed out that the full paragraph read:

"The mission received conflicting opinions on the effect of this development, ranging from the view that the inscribed area was rapidly being devalued to the point where continued inscription should be questioned, to the view that the local community, whose applications are ‘not discouraged by successive development plans, are faced with objection from the state, even for individual family homes’.

You should also note in the conclusion of the Unesco report (which is about the impact of the incinerator in Duleek, by the way, NOT about the Slane bypass), it states:

"Having visited the site and examined all available planning documents as well as the different viewpoints expressed by the stakeholders, the mission has come to the opinion that the current application will not have a major effect on the outstanding universal value and the visual integrity of the Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne (Ireland)."

These reports get linked in the hope that nobody will actually have time to read them.

Also I'd like to clarify a point in relation to the Bypass Slane group. It was formed in April 2009 after a horrific nine vehicle accident which occured on 23rd March 2009 when several mothers, a grandmother, and at least two pre-schoolers on their way home from the Slane school run were waiting at traffic lights on the hill when a lorry's brakes failed, and careered into the stationary cars. Thankfully another lorry was on the road and the first lorry, on crashing into that lorry, came to a stop, otherwise the consequences could have been much more serious. The point that people like Tuathal don't seem to get is just how unbelievably awful it is living in Slane, driving to and from the school, to and from the shops, even just trying to cross the road to the playground, while constantly watching the road behind you, leaving a gap in front of you and planning which pavement to mount if you need to avoid an oncoming runaway lorry.

The point has been made several times by Save Newgrange members that the meeting room above the Village Inn, whose address the Bypass Slane group use, is a room which is made available to many community groups in Slane. Instead it is taken as evidence of a Fianna Fail plot (isn't everything :rolleyes:). I know the founders of the Bypass Slane group. They're mothers, not politicians.

I would also like to say that I've never been involved in anything political before. I'm a mother who became involved in this, on the periphery, simply because I live in Slane and would like to get my children to school safely, and because I couldn't believe the absolute rubbish that was being spread around about the situation. I never realised I was so naive; I never would have comprehended such personal vicious attacks, such complete and utter fabrications and the amount of ad hominem attacks made by anyone who disagrees with the SN's completely false assertions. It has been a complete eye-opener, I have to say.

Slane Resident wrote: »

Coming back to this post after a while and I have to say, I'm highly amused (sorry MYOB) to find somebody else in receipt of the "you don't agree with me, therefore you're a Fianna Fail/NRA government stooge" argument. :rolleyes:

Could all people who agree with the Slane bypass please contact me at the local Fianna Fail Cumann to sign up for membership, as it appears that Fianna Fail membership appears to be a prerequisite to actually supporting the need for this bypass?!

(Sarcasm there, in case it went over certain people's head. I am not a FF member/voter/whatever).

@Etchyed, you should be aware of some points in relation to the Unesco link which was posted. This has been posted before by Save Newgrange members to support an assertion that they make that Unesco is considering altering Bru na Boinne's World Heritage Status. Read the link - seriously. There is absolutely NO MENTION of revoking the heritage status anywhere in the document.

As an example of the way this report has been misappropriated, Vincent Salafia posted on the Save Newgrange The Facts site:

"...the inscribed area was rapidly being devalued to the point where continued inscription should be questioned."

However, it was pointed out that the full paragraph read:

"The mission received conflicting opinions on the effect of this development, ranging from the view that the inscribed area was rapidly being devalued to the point where continued inscription should be questioned, to the view that the local community, whose applications are ‘not discouraged by successive development plans, are faced with objection from the state, even for individual family homes’.

You should also note in the conclusion of the Unesco report (which is about the impact of the incinerator in Duleek, by the way, NOT about the Slane bypass), it states:

"Having visited the site and examined all available planning documents as well as the different viewpoints expressed by the stakeholders, the mission has come to the opinion that the current application will not have a major effect on the outstanding universal value and the visual integrity of the Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne (Ireland)."

These reports get linked in the hope that nobody will actually have time to read them.

Also I'd like to clarify a point in relation to the Bypass Slane group. It was formed in April 2009 after a horrific nine vehicle accident which occured on 23rd March 2009 when several mothers, a grandmother, and at least two pre-schoolers on their way home from the Slane school run were waiting at traffic lights on the hill when a lorry's brakes failed, and careered into the stationary cars. Thankfully another lorry was on the road and the first lorry, on crashing into that lorry, came to a stop, otherwise the consequences could have been much more serious. The point that people like Tuathal don't seem to get is just how unbelievably awful it is living in Slane, driving to and from the school, to and from the shops, even just trying to cross the road to the playground, while constantly watching the road behind you, leaving a gap in front of you and planning which pavement to mount if you need to avoid an oncoming runaway lorry.

The point has been made several times by Save Newgrange members that the meeting room above the Village Inn, whose address the Bypass Slane group use, is a room which is made available to many community groups in Slane. Instead it is taken as evidence of a Fianna Fail plot (isn't everything :rolleyes:). I know the founders of the Bypass Slane group. They're mothers, not politicians.

I would also like to say that I've never been involved in anything political before. I'm a mother who became involved in this, on the periphery, simply because I live in Slane and would like to get my children to school safely, and because I couldn't believe the absolute rubbish that was being spread around about the situation. I never realised I was so naive; I never would have comprehended such personal vicious attacks, such complete and utter fabrications and the amount of ad hominem attacks made by anyone who disagrees with the SN's completely false assertions. It has been a complete eye-opener, I have to say.

Fair enough, you made some good points and I agree with everything that was said. However, I am still opposed to the Slane Bypass. This has nothing to do with the Unesco World Heritage site. My opposition is based purely on the fact that there is no need to spend at least €20million on a road to bypass one town when there is already a motorway 10km away. This money could be better spent adding a third lane to more of the M1. Most of the traffic currently causing the problems in Slane does not need to go near the town and only does so to avoid the M1 toll. I have already explained how toll dodgers can be diverted onto the old N3 at Navan with relative ease, although I dont see why we should be spending money on anything to accommodate toll dodgers. IMO tolls should be adjusted to encourage people to use motorways, especially for trucks. Get the trucks out of our towns which cant take them and onto the motorways which we have ready spent billions building, or in this case get them out of Slane and onto the M1.

tuathal wrote: »

The proposed bypass will intrude upon the World Heritage Site, directly. It will be visible, audible, and entail demolishing a number of archaeological sites that are related to Newgrange.

I've just seen this and I'm wondering, Tuathal, what archaeological sites that are related to Newgrange are to be demolished?

It's just that earlier on, in this post or another on this forum (I can't remember now, but can find out if necessary) you mentioned Ledwidge Cottage with the implication that it will be damaged, or at least impinged upon.

It may interest you to know, as you don't seem to know Slane at all, that the custodians of Ledwidge Cottage are very much in favour of the road as it will improve access and parking issues and therefore hopefully increase the number of visitors to the Cottage. At present the Cottage is accessed along a narrow part of the Navan/Drogheda road with practically no parking (there is a grass verge where a couple of cars, at most, can pull in). With the new bypass in place, access will be much simpler and safer.

So - what archaeological sites will be demolished exactly? (And please don't just trot out the "44 sites of archaeological interest" which just numbers the sites within 500 metres of the road, because of those sites, 34 will not be impacted at all, two will be impacted directly, 8 will be impacted indirectly. Of those 8, 3 are sites of "archaeologial potential", one a confirmed archaeological site, one is a boundary and one is the site of a now demolished 19th century building. Oh yes, and one is the old Slane-Dublin road (ironic, or what?)

Oh, and the proposed road will not be visible or audible from Newgrange. It may be slightly audible from Knowth, but less so than the existing road. It may be visible from Knowth, if you stand on top of the monument and use binoculars (seriously).

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Not a sign of Tuathal in THIS forum since he promised to "Get Back" to answering points raised in this thread on the 28th of October. How discourteous.

Or possibly he realised that he wasn't going to convince us of his arguments. Sometimes you just cut your losses.