Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has called on her fellow councillors to avoid rezoning additional lands when voting on the Draft Greystones Local Area plan at next Monday’s meeting of the council. De Burca points out that while councillors have been targeted with new rezoning proposals by local landowners and developers, that sufficient land has already been zoned in the Draft Plan to meet the population target for Greystones up to 2012.

“Page 27 of the Draft Greystones Local Area Plan states that there is existing zoned land capacity within the town to house the target population of over 22,000” says de Burca. “If councillors zone any additional land on Monday, they will in effect be pushing the population of the town up beyond that agreed limit. Unfortunately some councillors seem unable to resist the pressure placed on them by developers. However, the likely roads and social infrastructure of Greystones will just be able to absorb a population of 22,000 by 2012” she says. “If councillors vote to zone any significant amount of additional land, they are condemning the population of Greystones to even greater traffic congestion and completely inadequate infrastructure. This would not be acceptable”.

The Green Party councillor has also called for the Strategic Environmental Assessment which will be carried out on the Greystones LAP to include the proposed massive Harbour and North Beach development. “It is incredible that Wicklow County Council has cleverly avoided having to submit that massive project to the Strategic Environmental Assessment process” she says. “It is very clear that if the project is to go ahead, it will have a huge environmental impact on Greystones. And yet it has been excluded from the Strategic Environmental Assessment of the New Greystones Local Area Plan”.

De Burca will also submit a motion at Monday’s council meeting that the Harbour and North Beach Area be listed as an Architectural Conservation Area. “At the moment the Draft Greystones Local Area Plan gives it a very mild form of protection that has no legal standing” says de Burca. “Yet this part of Greystones has one of the highest numbers of listed buildings and is a central part of the Victorian architectural heritage of the town”.

De Burca has also insisted that the new Greystones Local Area Plan does not give any green light to developers who wish to develop the Charlesland Golf Club and South Beach Area of the town. “Any future plans for the South Beach area of the town, will be very dependent on what happens to the North Beach area” says de Burca. “The people of Greystones will not tolerate losing both of the unspoilt coastal amenity areas they have access to at present, to high rise commercial and residential development. Furthermore, any future development plan for the South Beach area will have to be subject to the widest possible public consultation and not just private presentations to councillors and council officials”. tion and all Minister Roche’s talk of giving it Natural Heritage Area (NHA) status will mean nothing”.