Bord na Móna floats airport idea for bog site

dmeehan

from todays Indo: http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=184&si=1439082&issue_id=12783

BORD na Móna believes it has the perfect site for a new airport to serve the Dublin area located just 29 kilometres from the capital and just four kilometres from the new western motorway.

Speaking at the presentation of the group's annual report for 2004, Bord na Móna managing director John Hourican said the development of an airport on its lands was one of the potential uses for the valuable site - the existing Dublin Airport would fit into the Bord na Móna site six times over, he said.

Mr Hourican said the group was attempting to open a national discussion on the possibility of developing an airport on the lands.

The search for alternative uses for its huge estate - after Coillte, it is the second-largest landowner in the country - will grow in importance over coming years as the milling of peat winds down.

Uses already identified include the building of windfarms and the development of land for pasture, wetlands and forestry.

However, the development of an airport so close to the capital is by far the most lucrative venture suggested to date, and is sure to attract attention from potential partners.

The group yesterday reported annual results just ahead of 2003, with turnover up 2pc at €258m and profits before tax up 1.5pc at €17.8m.

Mr Hourican said the profit was €5m ahead of the budgeted outcome for the year, thanks to a better-than-expected performance from its new business units, including the waste, bio fuels and windfarm ventures.

The increase came despite lower-than-anticipated sales of milled peat to the ESB -the group sold 2 million tonnes, compared to 2.8 million in the previous year. During the year, two new power stations, totalling 250MW, were opened. These deliver power at a conversion rate of 38pc, compared to just 22pc for the old peat stations.

Mr Hourican said that in coming years greater efficiencies would be generated by using peat in combination with other bio fuels including timber, reducing the consumption of peat.

The same strategy is being used for growing mediums. Bord na Móna is the largest supplier of growing mediums to the giant B&Q chain, and has been developing products which use additives to reduce the amount of peat being used, a response to consumer demand for a 'green' alternative to 100pc milled peat.

The group ended the year with no sign that its share option scheme for employees (ESOP) is any nearer, after an impasse was reached in negotiations between the shareholder, the State, and the unions representing Bord na Móna staff.

The impasse is over the structure of the ESOP and whether the shares should be vested with the individual members or retained on their behalf.

Mr Hourican said he regretted the impasse on the implementation of the ESOP, which at current levels would be worth about €4,000 per head.

He said he believed the shares should be vested in the individual employees, rather than being held on their behalf by another party.

On the pension front, Bord na Móna has agreed a scheme to fund the deficit on its pension fund, with the company putting up 80pc and employees 20pc until the deficit is closed. After that, contributions will be on a 50/50 basis.

However, Mr Hourican said in the long term, the continuation of the defined benefit scheme for new employees was not viable, and the group would have to implement a defined contribution scheme.

Pat Boyle

Genghis

It would be useful if they could tell us where this might be - instead of distances from Dublin and a yet-to-be completed road, how about mentioning the nearest town, or even the county?

I am presuming it is somewhere between Enfield and (say) Edenderry?

murphaph

What a load of Irish nonsense. The existing airport has ample room to expand to the west, sits between 3 major roads (M1, M50 and soon to be dualled N2), is a couple of miles from the Irish Rail network to the east and not too many to the southwest, is only 6 miles from the city centre of the capital and by far largest city on this island and any potential Luas or metro lines that might run to the airport and Swords from that city centre. An airport in the bog, yeah that's what we need :rolleyes: BNM must be looking at the situation west of the Shannon where nearly every county has an airport and is realising the terrible injustice that Co. Offally is being discriminated against in it's airport quota!

mackerski

murphaph wrote:

An airport in the bog, yeah that's what we need

It worked in Munich.

Dermot

jlang

But in Munich, they downgraded the old airport which had been over capacity and constrained by size and location.

Bogger77

murphaph wrote:

What a load of Irish nonsense. The existing airport has ample room to expand to the west, sits between 3 major roads (M1, M50 and soon to be dualled N2), is a couple of miles from the Irish Rail network to the east and not too many to the southwest, is only 6 miles from the city centre of the capital and by far largest city on this island and any potential Luas or metro lines that might run to the airport and Swords from that city centre. An airport in the bog, yeah that's what we need :rolleyes: BNM must be looking at the situation west of the Shannon where nearly every county has an airport and is realising the terrible injustice that Co. Offally is being discriminated against in it's airport quota!

So what you know, the most likely site based on the BNM details is near Kinneagad, to the south east of the Cement factory. On the Westmeath, Offaly and Meath boundaries. This would be as close to the Intercity Rail network as Dub Airport (Hill of the Downs). Right on the new M4/M6, close to the N52 road to Limerick/Cork, less than an hours drive from the Border, you could say Central.

Building on former raised bog land makes a lot of sense, as the land is flat, there's usually a large amount of available land, and it's cheap (def. cheaper than land in Swords). The major disadvantage I can see is the amount of early morning fog that would affect flights.

But of course, Murph only believes that Dublin should have facilities. God, or Philip, forbid that we build facilities in less prosperous area's, which are classed as disadvantaged by the EU.

murphaph

Bogger77 wrote:

But of course, Murph only believes that Dublin should have facilities. God, or Philip, forbid that we build facilities in less prosperous area's, which are classed as disadvantaged by the EU.

Don't dare put words in my mouth please. I have no problems with large conurbations getting their deserved infrastructure. The midlands are amongst the most sparsely populated parts of Ireland. Dublin city is far and away the biggest on the whole island. It's airport is ideally poised for expansion as it has nothing of significance built around it, especially to the west which is where that Canadian consultancy firm said it should expand into (completely ignored by government). Why oh why is my desire for Dublin airport to expand into land that is unusable for most uses (as it's under the approaches) perceived as my desire to do the poor citizens of the midlands out of an international airport.

@ Dermot-Riem was being swallowed up by the city and had no room to expand with burgeoning passenger numbers. It made sense for them and Franz Josef Strauss is an exceptional airport but come on-they built dedicated S-Bahn lines and an Autobahn spur right into the site.....do you really think that would happen for a new airport in the bog?

Dublin has no lack of low density land on which it can develop. It does not need to swallow up the land on which it's airport currently sits or the land to the east and west into which the airport could expand between the N2 and M1. Many cities would love to have the airport in the same position relative to their centres and with that sort of room to expand.

mackerski

murphaph wrote:

@ Dermot-Riem was being swallowed up by the city and had no room to expand with burgeoning passenger numbers. It made sense for them and Franz Josef Strauss is an exceptional airport but come on-they built dedicated S-Bahn lines and an Autobahn spur right into the site.....do you really think that would happen for a new airport in the bog?

No, not really. My original comment was mostly flippant, though I did want to point out that a bog needn't be a bad location for an airport as such, for reasons that others have since pointed out. In Munich, the fog was a big fear before it opened, but I understand they had a big drainage project and it doesn't appear to be an issue any more.

If they can make it viable, good luck to them.

Dermot

BrianD3

Kinnegad is a helluva lot more than 29 kms from Dublin. So it can't be there or anywhere near there. 29 kms is about the distance from the city centre to Maynooth. Is the Bog of Allen near there? 29 kms is pretty close and is well within the Dublin commuter belt. It does sound bizarre but maybe if there is large quantities of (relatively) cheap land available it might possibly work.

Lennoxschips

Is it a used up bog or an untouched bog?

If it's a natural unthouched bog we should preserve it.

Bogger77

Lennoxschips wrote:

Is it a used up bog or an untouched bog?

If it's a natural unthouched bog we should preserve it.

there's very little untouched bog left, mostly in Offaly (Clara bog) and parts of Kildare.

Dub13

I am a city boy so this could sound stupid,and if it does please forgive my rural knowledge.

Does bog land not attract fog/mist....?if it does well then its not a great site for an Airport.

SeanW

Hmmm ... Let's see. The poor, neglected people of the West have

A) The densest per-capita railway network in Ireland. Mayo is particularly well served (by ghost trains)
Shannon Airport and an aviation policy which has been for the last umpteen years to screw every Airport down to promote Shannon. Dublin Airport was deliberately built well below the specs needed simply to promote Shannon Airport and the results have generally been disasterous.
C) A string of small, useless airports all over the Western Seaboard, many survivng only heavily subsidised PSO routes.
D) The most amount of roads per capita, what is it? 25 meters of road per person in the West versus 5 M for an urban dweller.

Lennoxschips

seanw, if this airport is built then it could be a central airport for Ireland, meaning that all those airports along the westend seaboard that piss you off could possibly be scaled back.

but this plan will never happen, it's too late. should have happened 30 years ago though.

Victor

The site would appear to be between Innfield (Enfield), Edenderry and Allenwood and would appear to be a minimum of 29km from Leixlip. Depending on exactly where you put it, it would need a lot of connections for transport.

De Rebel

Its opens what would be a good discussion in many other countries.

The current airport in Dublin consists of two key parts, the runways and the terminal building. There is nothing much wrong with the runways, there is space for runway expansion and the plan for runway expansion is in hand. On the other hand, the current terminal building in Dublin is a unredeemable disaster and the aim should be to demolish it.

There are two ways of going about this.

(a) Greenfield site, per the BMN guy's suggestion. Advantages, clean modern futuristic, growth facilitating design possible – something that could cater for the next 30-50 years and beyond. Can be constructed with no disruption to existing facility. Existing facility can subsequently be shutdown. Disadvantages, costs more, requires new transport infrastructure, upsets vested interests, requires guts and forward thinking by the powers that be. (The latter being the show stopper). This approach has worked very well in Hong Kong, Denver, Singapore and other forward thinking cities.

(b) Build the new T2 (much larger than currently planned) or T2+T3, commission them, and then demolish that sh1tty mess that is the current T1. Advantages: Cheap(er). Disadvantages: Also requires guts forward thinking by the powers that be.

As usual we will get a mickey mouse fudge: T1 + T1 and a bit. One hundred years after the famed eight hundred years of suppression we are incapable of showing any initiative and seem hell bent on slavishly following muddled British thinking and creating our own little Heathrow in Collinstown.

Calina

murphaph wrote:

Don't dare put words in my mouth please. I have no problems with large conurbations getting their deserved infrastructure. The midlands are amongst the most sparsely populated parts of Ireland. Dublin city is far and away the biggest on the whole island. It's airport is ideally poised for expansion as it has nothing of significance built around it, especially to the west which is where that Canadian consultancy firm said it should expand into (completely ignored by government). Why oh why is my desire for Dublin airport to expand into land that is unusable for most uses (as it's under the approaches) perceived as my desire to do the poor citizens of the midlands out of an international airport.

I see no reason for me to get too bogged down in this debate but:

in the event that the powers that be, currently not known for forward thinking, were to consider building a brand new big airport 29km to the west of the city, and putting in the required transport connections, I say shut the airport in Collinstown down. And then, the land becomes very usable for residential development as airport approaches will be thirty odd km away.

Dublin Airport is a F I A S C O. It's bounded by roads on all sides. The terminal building developments which have taken place over the past four to five years have never been anything other than sticking plaster and the building has always been an overcrowded and uncomfortable mess, matched by Terminal 1 in CDG and Terminal 3 in Heathrow. Its proximity to the city is laughable because the transport connections are so funny, even allowing for blue buses. If you get on an S-Bahn in Frankfurt Airport, you are in the city centre in 10 minutes and at the Hauptbahnhof in 12 minutes. Here, oh, well depending on the time of day, you're talking 30 minutes to the city centre if you're lucky, and an hour to Heuston Station. Where's the benefit in being only six miles from the city if this is what the express non-stop buses are taking? The existence of competition hasn't actually changed the journey time. Put a train connection from a new airport to Connolly - depending on the location of this site - and you're probably as well off if not better off.

I've long been of the view that the current Dublin Airport shouldn't really be long for this life. I actually think this idea is a good idea, provided it is implemented properly with the required transport connections (the coach park in Dublin Airport isn't exactly great either) and the fact that it's only 29km is no big deal. Let's face it, Ryanair claim Hahn - 60km out - is in Frankfurt.

murphaph

Calina wrote:

in the event that the powers that be, currently not known for forward thinking, were to consider building a brand new big airport 29km to the west of the city, and putting in the required transport connections, I say shut the airport in Collinstown down. And then, the land becomes very usable for residential development as airport approaches will be thirty odd km away.

It seems 29km is not realistic and it would be a good deal further away than that. As for developing housing on Colinstown, are you for real? Dublin neds to sprawl out further like a hole in the head. There are umpteen infill sites and low density sites that should be developed before any further encroachment of the city takes place. This low density nightmare is why we have no underground-the densities don't support it.

Calina wrote:

Dublin Airport is a F I A S C O. It's bounded by roads on all sides.

Yes, a massive site bounded by 3 major roads-and the problem with this is?

Calina wrote:

The terminal building developments which have taken place over the past four to five years have never been anything other than sticking plaster and the building has always been an overcrowded and uncomfortable mess, matched by Terminal 1 in CDG and Terminal 3 in Heathrow.

Yup-it's a mess. Build T2 as T1 where McEvaddy wants to build it and demolish the existing T1 in time, replacing it with another large T2 if that ever becomes necessarry.

Calina wrote:

Its proximity to the city is laughable because the transport connections are so funny, even allowing for blue buses. If you get on an S-Bahn in Frankfurt Airport, you are in the city centre in 10 minutes and at the Hauptbahnhof in 12 minutes. Here, oh, well depending on the time of day, you're talking 30 minutes to the city centre if you're lucky, and an hour to Heuston Station. Where's the benefit in being only six miles from the city if this is what the express non-stop buses are taking? The existence of competition hasn't actually changed the journey time. Put a train connection from a new airport to Connolly - depending on the location of this site - and you're probably as well off if not better off.

Keeping the airport 6 miles from the city centre means that if and when densities do improve then a quality metro will be justified in connecting the airport to the city centre and beyond. The DART connection makes the most sense in the short term and would not be removed later, but improved upon with greater and greater segregation from other rail services through the addition of extra tracks between the city centre and where the line would diverge for the airport (near Portmarnock).

Calina wrote:

I've long been of the view that the current Dublin Airport shouldn't really be long for this life. I actually think this idea is a good idea, provided it is implemented properly with the required transport connections (the coach park in Dublin Airport isn't exactly great either) and the fact that it's only 29km is no big deal. Let's face it, Ryanair claim Hahn - 60km out - is in Frankfurt.

So, in essence you think we have crap connection from the city to an airport 6 miles away and believe these connections would be better to an airport 2 or 3 counties away. Try not to look at Collinstown as just the terminal you see when you use it. It's MASSIVE and has plenty of room for completely new terminals and rail connections to be provided. Because that isn't happening isn't because it's a bad site-it's because the 'government' are a joke who can't make any gutsy decisions, only dither and dither some more.

SeanW

The existing Airport has space for expansion, and is only 4km from the DART.

Time for the government to stop dithering over Irish Rail's DART spur and fund it. You'd have no trouble getting to the Airport with THAT in place

dowlingm

Look at the diagram from 10L/28R on Dublin Airport's website. That's a 10,200ft runway you're looking at and there's plenty of room. For terminals - there's also plenty of room if they're designed properly. Toronto T1 (new) and Heathrow's T5 are the models here - 30 million passengers in a relatively tight footprint.

What's needed for Dublin:

- Weston's illegal developments removed. If that means Weston is closed and redeveloped, boohoo.

- Baldonnel - All Air Corps activities except those related to Gardai, operations with Army units in Kildare etc. removed to one or more regional airports - examples:

• the CN-235MPAs should be based in a west coast airfield to extend flying time over the fishing grounds. This would also dissuade Ministers from using them for purposes they weren't bought for.
• Training activities should be moved to the regional airfield with the best weather record (not WAT or ORK for starters)

Baldonnel then leased to a civil operator with a military base remaining on part of the land. A link to a rail station on the Kildare line - it's a lot closer than Dublin Airport is to either Navan or Belfast lines! Can use a peoplemover to get workers and passengers right into the terminal from the train station. The civil operator's remit would be to promote General Aviation and bizjet traffic, and maybe some charter/low cost overflow as DUB gets larger or is being redeveloped. If Air Corps are carrying out bizjet overhauls why not certify the operation to civil standards and make money from it?

The reduction in Air Corps movements and the rationalisation of Dublin airspace should result in more efficient flightpaths and more civil capacity, while the regional airports benefit from Air Corps business (and GWY might be able to stop fleecing VFR movements) rather than direct subvention and the Air Corps in turn would benefit from Baldonnel lease payments or a transfer of the airfield to the ownership of OPW in exchange for more new equipment - like helicopters to return SAR to the Air Corps, or an A319CJ for airlift to UN operations.

Victor

dowlingm wrote:

Training activities should be moved to the regional airfield with the best weather record (not WAT or ORK for starters)

Probably Gormanstown.

The civil operator's remit would be to promote General Aviation and bizjet traffic, and maybe some charter/low cost overflow as DUB gets larger or is being redeveloped.

It might make sense to remove all the general aviation (cargo, biz jets, light aircraft, training, ferry flights) but it makes little sense to move the "overflow" until there genuinely is

A link to a rail station on the Kildare line - it's a lot closer than Dublin Airport is to either Navan or Belfast lines!

For who? The airport would have a minimal number of people to move.

or an A319CJ for airlift to UN operations.

Single aricraft fleets tend to be expensive.

dowlingm

Victor

obviously stuff like a peoplemover would be down the road (would be cheaper than a spur though) as the airport got busier. We're not talking doing all this by 2007 or anything. However, there's something to be said for getting the DART to the airfield and then flying out on your Cessna

As for Gormanston, wasn't that sold to pay for the PC-9s?

The 319 - the CJ was pitched to the Irish govt as a dual transport/ministerial transport which could deliver troops or cargo. The 319 would be attractive to officers and maintenance crew in future careers outside IAC. At the moment I presume aircraft are chartered which isn't cheap either.

The Sisco Kid

I don't know much about this part of the world, but does this site near to Kilcock and Clane look like a candidate?

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.339073,-6.787148&spn=0.148198,0.363338&t=h&hl=en