Brown Envelope Development

True Propaganda

Brown Envelope Development

Answer this one…This week’s hard question for limerick city County Council and government.
How can planning permission be granted for a 10,000 seater stadium in the middle of Limerick City, without providing one single car park space in a busy residential area, in one of the most congested areas of the city?

Yes folks I’m on about Thomond Park. Seriously, do they really expect us to believe that no “Brown Envelope” changed hands here! If the rubber bandits built a flat for their granny in Clareview, I’m sure they would have to provide parking spaces,! not to mention a 10,000 seater stadium and conference venue! And we all know where they park! Illegally, everywhere on match day, bringing the city to a complete standstill for hours on end causing nightmare traffic congestion, driving real shoppers out of the city for good.

I say move the whole fiasco to Coonagh next to the necessary infrastructure needed to support a 10,000 seater stadium. I am not anti Rugby, or Thomond, just anti stupid brown envelope planning. Of course Thomond Park is only part of a raft of bad planning that has been allowed to destroy Limerick city. Other stupid projects / decisions worth mentioning are:-

The Roxboro interchange – no city access from the south into the city! The killmallock interchange:- or lack of it! (access from M7 to Killmallock road (aka cut price motorways) The Ballysimon interchange- a complete after thought… band aided afterwards by rows of traffic lights that operate independently like disco lights!

The entrance to Tesco at Coonagh.. It’s no wonder they are looking for planning permission for a petrol station in there! Your tank is empty by the time you go from the coonagh roundabout, through the snakes and ladders road arrangement to finally arrive at the Tesco car park!

The North side green mile ghost bus route? Has anyone ever seen a bus on this road?

The Pink Elephant Opera House!. Limerick is a cultural Abyss lets face it…, we have the Rubber Bandits (type) and the law or lack of it…means, that we are stuck with them …. Let’s work (around) what we have. Opera Jaaasaus what were they thinking…Florence we are not! – I say demolish the lot, and build a free car park to support what little business is left in the city, and police it, so the cars and shoppers are not robbed in broad daylight! When Brown Thomas go folks, it will be too little too late.


P.S "x in the city" a loads of your red shirt friends go there after the matches by the way :-)

Dear Feret, or whatever, I do hope this is less painful and meets with your approval, text wise and paragraph wise, as clearly "x in the city's" reply met with your un-biased approval!!

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Cookiemunster

Firstly the capacity of TP is 26,500 not 10,000. Before development capacity of the stadium was 13,000.

Secondly there are stadiums built all over the world with no parking. Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Emirates Stadium in London, Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, Camp Nou in Barcelona. Its quite normal with city centre stadiums.
A traffic managment plan was required which was agreed to by the Guards was part of the PP. There are 5 park and ride sites outside the city on match days, there are multiple multistory car parks in the city centre which is only a 15 -20 mins walk and there is plenty of parking at the Jetland. Also there was only 1 objection to the PP which was withdrawn after negotiations with the Munster Branch I believe, before it went to APB.

Thirdly the Coonagh Shopping Centre, the road network in the area and the bus route were given PP and built when Limerick County Council was in control of this area and before it was brought into the city. The county council have little or no regard for what occurs within the city limits.

Fourth. The Opera Centre. Without the recession this could curently be one of the largest building sites in the country providing hundreds of jobs and was due to be the largest shopping centre in Munster when finished. Yes at the moment its a white elephant, but City Council don't own it and can't demolish it. What happens to it depends on NAMA.

As for the M7, the N24 interchange was designed and built by the NRA. Everyone will agree that it is underpowered but that hardly the fault of City Council.
There can't be an interchange at the Killmallock road as it's only about 250m from the Roxboro interchange. That one however I can agree is City Councils fault. They asked for the exit to be deleted at design stage and didn't cop on how this was a bad idea until after construction had started and it was too late to change. Not a brown envelope issue though.

Limerick City Council is by no means perfect and has huge flaws, but I think you need to get yours facts straight before saying that every issue in and around the city is due to brown envelopes.

True Propaganda

Seriously though, because mistakes were made in other citys, did we need to make one?

The City, ups (town), is no place for a stadium, and the so called "traffic management plan" is plain bull**** lets face it.. I guess you never tried to get accross the city match day!!!! As for park and ride, people are too lazy to use it.. I still think the brown envelope goes back a long way and is alive and well! just look at the old Dunnes Stores by sarsfield bridge, deliverys had to be made up a one way street for peats sake! - Brown Envelope

City council need to WAKE UP, Limerick City is anti car (far too many un-coordinated trafic lights, and not car friendly), anti shopper, (Not eneough on street parking) anti commerce (Crazy Rates for businesses), I predict no major shops will be left in the next five years unless drastic action is taken by city council, there is nothing left only coffee shops, and thats no reason to spend 1/2 an hour trying to get onto the city centre.

Also, if Arthers Quey did not work, The "Opera Centre" hardly would have, anyway again they would be snookered by too little, and too expensive car parking, people would just still go to car friendly Cresent!
The emphisis in the city seems to be on giving parking tickets, rather then giving help.
Anyway, why would you go into the city when you can park you car for free in the Cresent, and have a far better choice of shops, with no yobs lotering about, and no parking ticket either.

Jayuu

You've not posted one piece of evidence of interference or underhanded dealings in the planning process to support any of your points. Basically your argument comes down to - "I don't like this so therefore it must be corrupt".

By all means criticise what you think is poor decision making processes. I'm sure there will be people who will agree with you on some of those points. However to insinuate that corruption is involved is unhelpful and undermines your arguments. I also think your doing yourself no favours with the implied tone in your posts.