Offaly Co Council is to be informed shortly by D·chas that the best way to protect Charleville Wood, a Special Area of Conservation, from the Tullamore bypass, is to route the new road along the existing planned alignment.
A council meeting last week deferred a final decision on the routing of the bypass until next month so members could meet with D·chas. They hope to persuade the heritage service to reconsider its plans to extend the protected area within Charleville Wood so they may proceed with the original route, which is less controversial.
Charleville was designated a special area of conservation because of the presence there of a rare species of snail, the vertigo moulinsiana, as well as for its old oak woodland.
The move is seen as a short-lived reprieve for residents of Muchlagh, just outside Tullamore, who are vehemently opposed to the current proposed route for the bypass. County manager Mr Niall Sweeney warned the meeting it would be "highly unlikely" D·chas would overturn its decision, the Tullamore Tribune reported.
To say otherwise would create "an unreal expectation", he told councillors. Nonetheless, the meeting was arranged, as requested, and councillors will meet D·chas representatives on October 8th, one week before their monthly plenary meeting (October 15th) when a final decision will be taken.
A senior D·chas official confirmed last night, however, that it was very much in favour of the existing "emerging preferred route" and will tell the council this at the meeting. Although legally it would be possible to put a route through an area of special conservation, "it would be more difficult to get past it", the official said.
"We have an alignment that goes down the track of the existing road," he said, with only minimal incursion on the SAC area - "only six metres on one corner".
In the circumstances it made sense to put the new road down the line of the designated route, the D·chas official said.
The planning situation had been complicated by the SAC, Mr Sweeney, told The Irish Times. "We would have started out with a pre-determined SAC boundary, but that was changed by D·chas during the planning process." The original proposal providing for Muchlagh to be bypassed on the east provoked protests from the local community and environmental activists. The second preferred option which would impact only minimally on the SAC, bypassed the townland on the west and was similarly opposed, said Mr Sweeney.
He had warned the council, he confirmed, against creating an "unreal expectation" that D·chas would reduce the SAC area so that the original bypass route could be adopted.
He believed that this would be the outcome of the October 8th meeting with D·chas indicating that the current plan was the best solution.
"Members of the council must hear it from D·chas for themselves," said Mr Sweeney. "What I was attempting to do was to clear up the confusion." In the event of D·chas maintaining its position, the planning authority would have no option but to proceed with its plan to build the bypass on the second route. These were the only options available to it.
The plan is for the 15km bypass to travel in a south-west direction from Durrow to Mucklagh with changes to the section close to Mucklagh. The section from Ballard Wood to Mucklagh has been altered so it does not go through the wood, but instead travels along the existing road between Ballard and Mucklagh bridge.
If, as expected, councillors are persuaded by D·chas that there is no viable alternative to the existing proposal without compromising the SAC, the Tullamore bypass should at last be given planning permission on October 15th.
In the event the development could start early in 2003 and be completed by 2005.