Balbriggan services inadequate to support 564-unit scheme, residents claim

Balbriggan residents claim there are not adequate local services in place to accommodate a new €251.5 million, 564-unit residential scheme for a site off Flemington Lane near the north Co Dublin town.

More than 90 objections have been lodged against the large-scale residential development (LRD) scheme seeking planning permission from Fingal County Council. Dean Swift Property Holdings UC is seeking a 10-year planning permission for 378 houses, 102 apartments and 84 duplex units.

Local residents claim the area does not have sufficient numbers of school places, GPs and shops to cater for the existing population, however.

One local resident, Dr Meenakshi Nursing, told the council that, as a resident who moved to the town in 2020, she had “to go as far as Drogheda to access a GP. None of the current GPs in Balbriggan are accepting new patients as they have reached capacity.”

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Dr Nursing said all of the concerns in the submission showed “Balbriggan residents seeking jobs, shopping, extracurricular activities, essential primary care services and entertainment outside of Balbriggan”.

A submission on behalf of Balbriggan Community Council outlined many similar concerns.

Kate Bradley, on behalf of the community council, said the development would “be damaging to the town, the sense of community and will just perpetuate the problems that are already present in the town”.

Ms Bradley went on to say Balbriggan was “very disjointed with no clear centre, vacant shops in the main street and a large proportion of the population are working, shopping and spending their leisure time outside of the town”.

In an objection lodged on behalf of Flemington Park residents, Kevin Tolan of KT Designs Architectural and Planning Consultants said: “What is being proposed in this LRD is to put another 564 dwellings on an unserviced greenfield site on the periphery of a town that is deemed to require catch-up investment in infrastructure and employment under current planning policy.

“This proposal, simply put, is ‘compact sprawl’ as opposed to ‘compact growth.’”

Mr Tolan added: “This proposal, if permitted, will advocate for repeating the now recognised planning mistakes of the past, ie unsustainable urban sprawl.”

However, as part of a 127-page planning report lodged with the application, Kevin Hughes of Hughes Planning and Development Consultants said the scheme “presents an appropriately scaled residential development on residentially zoned land”.

He said the project’s site “has the capacity to accommodate additional residential accommodation and respond to the current housing shortage apparent in the north Dublin area”.