DART+ (DART Expansion)

Strictly speaking it isn't about planning decisions but about the way an application has been handled. The consideration of a planning application has to processed in accordance with legislation. So you cannot use a JR to object to a planning application but you can use it if the processing of an application was not done in accordance with the law.

Hopefully the new Planning and Environment court of the high court which started this year will mean a much faster track for processing JRs and the like - it will have judges and staff who specialize in planning and environmental law - and operates like the commercial court - with a separate list so no being held up by whatever shenanigans Enoch Burke and the likes gets up to.

Anyway I'm not sure planning is the main bottleneck at the moment. I think a bigger issue might be construction industry capacity. There's just so much going on and there's only so many designers, engineers, transport engineers, construction workers, etc. to go around. Residential building alone is going gangbusters at the moment - more than 35k units expected this year which is over 10 times as many as were built in 2014 - that's sucking up a lot of talent.

I don't see how anyone could argue planning isn't the bottleneck when basically every big infrastructure project announced almost a decade ago is still stuck in the planning system?!

No doubt capacity is a big issue as well (or at least it would be if we could get any projects shovel ready) but the skill set for rail work will be totally different to housing. I'd say we'll end up hiring in a lot of contractors and subbies from the UK anyway as we just don't have any rail infrastructure industry at all in this country

I’m merely making the point that it’s still a possibility.

One lives in hope!

I live in D13 and would benefit from the increased northern line frequency so from a selfish point of view I'm fully in favour of the shuttle.

I'm just making a point about the poor user experience, improved frequency doesn't necessarily equate to improved service for a lot of people. If they're going to be forced to get off the train there and wait then at least provide some basic comforts, a couple of little bus shelters at either end of the platform shouldn't be considered good enough

If you have that much faith in Irish Rail that there'll rarely be any waiting then all power to you! We still don't know what actual frequencies, especially off peak, will be like.

I don't see how it could just wait either assuming it's running to a schedule, otherwise the departure times from Howth would be completely random and unreliable

But anyway, I'm still in favour of powering through with the current plan, if tweaks are needed later then so be it but get the infrastructure up to scratch before the political meddling takes over

Yeah I'm not saying planning isn't a bottleneck but I'm not sure that if all planning obstacles were removed overnight that suddenly we'd start seeing construction commence on all the big infrastructure projects. Just because something was announced 10 years ago, doesn't mean it has been stuck in planning for 10 years. The worst case that I know of is the RO to remove level crossings on the Cork-Dublin mainline which was stuck for 2-3 years? Most of the planning delays were due to lack of staff and resources in ABP which has been somewhat addressed by a hiring spree.

For residential construction in Dublin at least (which I follow), planning hasn't been the real bottleneck for a few years - there are far more granted applications for new developments than there are projects under construction. The hold-up here is either lack of capital (some of the expensive high-rise proposals like on the Hickey's site near Heuston) or simply that there is no construction capacity. For a sector which has seen output expanding 10-fold in 10 years, it's not surprising that there's a squeeze here.

We haven't, in the history of the state, seen such a pipeline of investment in public transport infrastructure. Planning is one of the constrictions with the pipeline, but a lack of expertise and construction capacity another. IE at least seem to be struggling with even preparing ROs - like with the DART+ depot debacle.

I think there's more overlap than you think between construction for residential and for infrastructure - not all infrastructure construction requires specialists (running TBMs etc.) - a lot of it involves fairly generic construction (most of BusConnects, bridges, stations, etc. for rail projects). There's a lot of overlap in the expertise - not just skilled and semi-skilled construction workers but civil engineers, project planners, managers, etc.

The trick will be that once we get through this difficult phase (ramping up from building almost nothing at all during the IMF years to building more housing per capita than any other country in Europe) that we should continue to line up big public transport projects and feed them into the pipeline.

Boom/bust patterns of investment will mean that we will repeatedly hit these bottlenecks. Budgeting should be done in 10 year cycles - and locked in - to ensure a continuous flow of improvements.

As mentioned, the M3 parkway shuttle waits for the outbound Maynooth to arrive, and any transferring passengers to board, before it departs.
The service isn’t particularly busy, but that’ll change when they start building more around Hansfield. I think it’s 5000 units going in on the outbound side of the station.

Yeah, I’ve seen that at Hansfield on the 3 piece ICR in the morning. People left behind at following platforms. People on the train not going to Docklands too, but won’t wait 7 mins for the less busy Grand Canal Dock train. Then some people ending up at Docklands that thought the train was going via Connolly to serve to GCD.

At this point I'll be retired before I'll see significant improvements on this line.

Planning delays absolutely plays a role because capital doesn’t hang around. If DCC hadn’t mucked around with the Tara building for example, that building would likely be built at this point. I understand the point on the tracks, but fundamentally the business case got lost with the financial model involved. Absolute number of planning permissions doesn’t really tell you much aside from there is a market there that people want to serve (and there is always speculative planning permissions). That is where the LDA are valuable as they can have a balance sheet size that can look through some of the fundamentals and activate certain PPs that have been granted.

In terms of DART+ and Metrolink, I’ve estimated that directly COVID held up c. 15-21 months and planning similar (based on timelines articulated in 2019). We should have been there with both by Q1 of 2022. With COVID I’d estimate half of that was unavoidable (initial lockdown responses and travel issues) and the second part imo comes down to the NTA and Government inertia during C19 (a point to be debated separately).

On planning we have to also consider the indirect delays of consultations which are essentially about cutting out down on planning issues and bridging the engineers dream to on the ground realities. If it is true that we are getting 3 JRs, you’d have to say that has not worked. In the absence of other changes, you’d also have to say the lesson for the NTA and Irish Rail here to be more cutthroat going forward. It seems that they tried to avoid planning issues but have run into them anyway. Perhaps it would be more advisable to be less amenable to those “concerns” and be more decisive in decision making- anticipating that there will be challenges but that if they get their ducks in a row that they can get the projects through ultimately.

We have to call out though that there has clearly been mistakes made in these projects that to me are fairly poor between the building at Earlsfort Terrace and the Maynooth Depot.

they already have but have still decided they prefer what they have.

I think those taking these JRs know full well they'll be thrown out. But they know they can use them to delay.

There's no obligation on the courts either to grant the JR, or they can allow work to proceed while the JR is ongoing.

If they're really frivolous, then you'd hope that they will be thrown out.

That said, there's a fair amount of impact on businesses and residents along the line and I think there are plenty of people out there with genuine grievances that IE did not address, I don't think we can dismiss them all as delaying tactics.

An applicant doesn't have to address every grievance, if they did, everybody would have a list as long as Devin Toner's leg.

I'd say very few genuine JR issues can be avoided before the planning application. A JR looks at the process and whether all necessary procedures were followed, factors taken into consideration and constitutional rights respected. The public can’t really know if that has been the case until the application has been made.

There are also JRs attempted over small things, potentially due to not really understanding what it is or possibly looking to get something in return for dropping it.

The 2 judicial reviews against DART+ West have been granted leave to proceed.

This sets back a start on construction by a year at least.

Just to note these 2 judicial reviews are from business owners that will have their businesses closed or severely limited by the proposed underpass at Ashtown. And the only reason why the underpass was routed this way is because Leo Varadkar interfered to preserve a decrepit horse abuse facility ran by the crustiest of entitled unemployed families that claim their 'facility' has community value. If Leo hadn't stepped in, we likely would have had enabling works began already.

How can they be unemployed, yet run a business?

I don't know much about horse riding, but is it not a good facility for kids?

I'm more stressed out about an extra year of delays to services due to manually operated gates!

Fortunately the stables are no longer talking with their solicitor and can't engage with another solicitor, nobody wants to work with them basically so they couldn't launch a judicial review. They turned up to the oral hearing ranting and raving, grown men with greasy pony tails shouting at people, no solicitor is going to take that on. I doubt they could afford a JR either given the state of their 'stables'.

What are the claims from the two JR's? I recall they created an elaborate overpass to maintain access into the haulage company in order to appease them and now they submit a JR? Unbelievable.

Also same company own the historic mill building which they've let go to ruin through the years. They don't care about anyone using the DART or the locality.

As said above, judging by the Clongriffin JR all the stables would have had to do is say "I don't want this thing here, Irish Rail didn't do enough to not have it here" and a judge would gladly rubber stamp a multi year charade

But it wasn't thrown out... she was granted a review?

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2024/06/19/high-court-permits-artane-resident-to-pursue-challenge-over-north-dublin-bus-corridor/

Unless I'm misreading it and this is just permitting her to request a JR?

Is there any chance that these things will move a bit faster now that there's a dedicated planning and environment court?

And is there any facility to move important cases like this one further up in the queue?

Theoretically, the JR could be so successful as to send the whole thing back to the start.

Theoretically yes, but I can't see any scenario in which the High Court suspends the entire RO purely because of one very localised problem. But again, IE absolutely will down tools for the duration, it's how they operate.

It's odd that this hasn't made the news, so all we have is one poster who has told us that a) the applications were lodged and b) they've been granted. So we don't know if they've been granted leave to apply for a JR, whether the JR itself has been granted, or whether none of it is true.

A JR is taken against the grant of planning permission as a whole, not just a particular part of it. Even if the person taking the JR is only interested in a small park of the planning permission, they are challenging the whole lot. IÉ can't just plough on with everything except the Ashtown LC area.

This is very different to the situation with the depot near Maynooth. The depot was refused but the rest of the application granted meaning can proceed with what has been approved (well, could have until the JRs).