New commuter station gets go-ahead in Pelletstown in Dublin

Irish Rail has been granted permission for a new train station at Pelletstown in Dublin in an area designated for major residential development by Dublin City Council.

However, the Department of Transport has not committed to the station being built, despite the payment of €2.3 million in development levies for its construction.

Pelletstown station would be on the Maynooth line, between Broombridge station in Cabra and Ashtown station near the Royal Canal. It has been planned since the late 1990s and in 2002 was earmarked as an “immediate priority” in Irish Rail’s greater Dublin area integrated rail network plan.

Cash crisi

s An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant permission for the

station comes just days after it emerged that Irish Rail was facing a cash crisis and that the Department of Transport had warned that a “significant reappraisal of the existing rail network” was needed.

In January 2013 Irish Rail applied to the council to build the station and was given approval a year ago. The application had been supported by the National Transport Authority (NTA), which said the station would help serve the transport needs of the existing and future local population.

The council's decision was appealed to An Bord Pleanála by local residents concerned the unmanned station would attract "antisocial behaviour, vandalism and crime".

Monitoring reports

An Bord Pleanála has applied a condition requiring ongoing monitoring reports on public safety and antisocial issues, but determined the station should be given the go-ahead. It noted the station was an objective of a number of city council planning policies.

The lands, just 5km from the city centre, have been zoned for residential development since 1998 and the provision of a railway station at the site was part of the justification for allowing high-density housing in the area.

A spokesman for the Department of Transport said: “Irish Rail will now be reviewing the business case and following consideration will report to the National Transport Authority. If the report is positive then it will be a matter of the cost and where the project is ranked by NTA on a priority list for available funding.”

If the station is scrapped the levies must be returned to the developers.