M28 - Cork to Ringaskiddy [advance works ongoing; 2025 start; 2028 completion]

Hi All,
M28 delegates met with TII / RPS consultants in the County Hall Cork on Tuesday the 4th April 2017. This meeting was facilitated by Michael Martin TD and was held to discuss TII’s up to date plans for the M28 motorway scheme.
Delegates were given a powerpoint presentation of the draft EIS which outlined the following;
Motorway is to be constructed through the Mulcon Valley as originally planned.
Maryborough slip road is to be closed off as originally planned.
Additional roadway (Wavering Lane) through Rochestown Rise /Newlyn Vale to be constructed as originally planned
New Bridge to be constructed adjacent to Newlyn Vale as originally planned.
Bloomfield flyover bridge to be moved towards the church to facilitate additional flyover as originally planned.
Two -Way link road on Maryborough Hill to be constructed as originally planned.
Traffic congestion on Maryborough Hill will be far in excess of what was originally planned.
Please note “as originally planned” is included in the above to demonstrate the fact that despite ALL of our endeavours in terms of representations made to include political, both locally and nationally along with countless meetings, TII and the Minister Mr Shane Ross not to mention over 500 submissions to TII - ALL of which has fallen on deaf ears.
To compound matters further what we learned at last Tuesdays briefing by TII is that residents will also have to accept the following;
TII confirmed noise levels will increase up to 4 times from its current levels of between 60 & 80 dbl along the Mulcon Valley / Bloomfield areas
Some noise ameoliaration barriers are to be erected however these barriers whilst enabling a decrease in places, noise levels will still be as high as 70 to 80dbl- TII have confirmed that noise dbl will continue to be in excess of current values and there is nothing they can do about it.
To protect residents a 3 metre concrete wall is to be erected along parts of the route from the Rochestown Park Hotel through to Lissadell with a lower level wall up to Maryborough bridge.
All trees and hedgerows currently lining this route are to be removed to facilitate the construction of the additional north bound laneway. Although some replanting is to take place it will be a generation before these are high enough to restore noise to existing levels which are already in breach of guidelines
Wall will also be built from the slip road on the N40 at Bloomfield passing homes near St Patricks Church and run up Bloomfield to the Mount Oval slip road. This wall will be erected once widening of the slip road takes place to include the removal of ALL trees currently lining this route.
3 metre concrete wall is a safety barrier and NOT a noise ameoliration barrier. Articulated vehicles are coming extremely close to many homes and this wall will (with the construction of the new laneway) ríse to almost roof level of homes at Newly Vale.
800 new homes to be built at Shannon Park along with 500 new builds at Castletreasure.
New roadways to be put in place from Grange and Castletreasure with the added consequences for residents on Maryborough Hill and surrounding areas.
Acknowledgement by TII that major increases in traffic along Maryborough Hill leading to traffic congestion at ALL points along this route to include the Douglas Fingerpost roundabout – Plans to ultimately remove roundabout and replace with traffic light system. Inevitable increase in rat runs through Maryborough Estate etc.
M28 delegates were stunned to say the least! Our counter proposal for an alternative route was simply brushed aside by RPS / TII as a box ticking exercise and nothing more. No Tangable or meaningful response was forthcoming from them. They had not done a detailed costing or analysis for an alternative route - but they did say that it would be a LITTLE dearer (whatever that means without having costed or identified an alternative route to be compared with the proposal for the M28.) even if it the alternative route was a little dearer surely it is not the only criterion by which a decision should be made considering the serious health implications for children and all residents arising from the proposal for M28. No proper examination of alternatives to the current preferred route was carried out other than to explain that the current proposal for the N28 Is a Project and that no other routes were now in positive consideration.
We are in receipt of a hard copy of the draft EIS presentation given by TII and are studying it closely! Whilst still in draft stage it outlines various statistics in terms of projected traffic volumes around peak times in all areas and shows clearly the increased traffic volumes around Douglas, Maryborough Hill and R610 Rochestown Road. We will discuss these figures and all aspects of TII’s conclusions at our next steering group meeting.
The above is just a snapshot of what we as a community will face in the coming months and years ahead. Our quality of life will be greatly affected not to mention our health and wellbeing particularly for those in the eye of this unacceptable imposition.
At the close of our meeting TII informed us that they are to hold a presentation at the Carrigaline Court Hotel on Tuesday the 11th April from 2PM – 8PM. Given this acute and untimely notice we requested for this presentation to be deferred in order for our group to take stock and brief residents on what we had just learned however this too fell on deaf ears and consequently the presentation by TII will go ahead as scheduled.
Incidentally we asked TII why they did not see fit to hold such presentation in Douglas or Rochestown and their response was to state that they could not source a meeting room either in the Maryborough Hotel or the RPH?????????? We kindly offerred an alternative venue in the Douglas area but they declined!
It is of critical importance that residents attend this presentation and we ask each of you in turn to spread the word of the upcoming presentation to your resident association members also. We also ask that you query TII/RPS with the very pertinent questions around Noise and Air emissions, traffic volumes & congestion, route alignment near Bloomfield and how close the wall barrier and additional roadway will be to your homes.
In light of the above and given what we now know, a full steering group meeting will take place on Tuesday 18th April at the Rochestown Park Hotel to further appraise members on what we have learned. Our meeting on the 18th requires that ALL residential steering group members and reps of private householders are in attendance. Put simply the matters for discussion are very serious indeed and this meeting will be defining moment in our campaign.
Kind regards,
Gerard Harrington & Frances Murphy
Co- Chair M28 Steering Group

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

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4. For this to be true, some sort of medium sized nuclear device would be required. Not part of the design schematics I believe.