Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca has claimed that the recent decision of Wicklow County Council to rezone 80 acres next to Charlesland in Greystones for a large out-of-town shopping centre and residential development was “another very bad planning decision for Greystones”.

The Green Party councillor made her remarks following a recent meeting of the council at which a majority of councillors voted to change land designated for Employment purposes and rezone it instead for Retail and Residential purposes. She says that no traffic impact assessment was carried out on the proposed shopping centre which will be between one-third and one quarter the size of Dundrum Shopping Centre, or any assessment of its impact on local businesses in the area. “The planners were completely opposed to this rezoning and the County Manager recommended that it be dropped from the new Greystones/Delgany Local Area Plan” she says. “However a majority of councillors voted it through” says de Burca.

“The way in which this rezoning has happened raises very serious questions about the planning process in County Wicklow” she says. “The putting together of a Local Development Plan takes the best part of two years and follows a clear statutory process. Public consultation is built in at every stage. However, Cllr George Jones proposal to change the Employment zoning on this land and to rezone it for a massive out-of-town shopping centre was only made for the first time on September 4th this year - two months before the final adoption of the Plan. He told councillors that the developer- Zapi- had been in discussions with the Greystones Area councillors about this rezoning for over a year. Yet none of the 3,000 residents of Charlesland were ever consulted about the proposed shopping centre during that time”.

De Burca says that this is a developer-led rezoning and has little to do with what is good for Greystones. “The five residents associations from the Charlesland Area told the Greystones councillors that they did not want the land to be rezoned until they had time to be properly consulted about it” she says. “However three of the local councillors ignored their wishes and pushed ahead with the rezoning. This is very similar to the situation with the massive development of Greystones Harbour and North Beach where local councillors ignored the opposition of 80% of the town’s residents and supported the development. One has to ask why local councillors continue to support very large profitable developments in the town in the face of strong opposition from the people they are supposed to represent”.

De Burca also insists that the legal agreement signed by Wicklow County Council with the well-known developers Sean Mulryan of Ballymore Homes and Sean Dunne of Brambleglen Development Ltd will prejudice any planning application that will be submitted to the council with regard to the proposed out-of-town shopping centre in the future. “How can the council possibly claim it will assess any future planning application objectively when it has already entered into a signed legal agreement with the developers” she asks?