A road project in Co Wicklow is facing delays of at least three years, a quadrupling of costs, and a potentially large compensation bill, after it had to be redesigned to avoid an unlicensed landfill site on its route.
What was to be a simple €5 million road construction of an interchange on the N11 at Kilpedder, Co Wicklow, has now turned into a legal and planning nightmare for Wicklow County Council.
The planned interchange at Kilpedder was due to be completed next year and was to link up with a new dual carriageway for Greystones, which is currently under construction.
A number of major planning permissions for nearly 1,500 houses were also granted in the Greystones and Delgany region in the expectation that the interchange and new roadway would be ready.
However, the interchange has not even begun construction and will not be ready until late 2007 at the earliest, because of a major redesign of the roadway after engineers became concerned about an unlicensed dump which lay along the route.
The site, an old gravel pit, had been the subject of unsuccessful planning and waste enforcement proceedings in the Circuit Court by Wicklow County council in 1998 to prevent dumping .
However, the owner of the land successfully argued that the waste, which he said was inert material, was being brought onto the site to bring an old gravel pit back to its original state.
This was accepted by the court. In 1999 Wicklow councillors voted, against the advice of planners, to rezone the site for employment development.
This rezoning was included in the 2004 plan by councillors, this time on the advice of planners, because of compensation fears if the zoning was deleted.
Despite the 1998 court case, engineers for the council were unaware of the waste issue, and designed part of the road through the controversial site, and the council also issued compulsory purchase orders for the land.
It was only after this that through detailed tests engineers discovered that there were large volumes of waste on the site, some of it contaminated, which would have to be removed at a huge cost.
A major redesign got underway last year to avoid the dump and at one stage 27 possible designs had been identified.
Two designs have now been shortlisted which have been sent in recent days to the National Roads Authority for a final decision.
A spokeswoman for Wicklow County Council defended the project however, and said the original plan would have to have been upgraded in any case to cater for a large increase in traffic that has taken place in the area.
She said that the roads' section had been unaware of the exact nature of the waste on the controversial site until it carried out site investigations in 2002.
The council was unable to say what the estimated cost of the new redesign was, but conservative estimates have put the final bill at around €20 million. The council is also facing a potentially large compensation claim from the landowner, for failing to proceed with the original compulsory purchase order.
The situation has incensed residents in the area, especially in the village of Delgany, which was to have been bypassed by the interchange project.
Local Fine Gael councillor Mr Derek Mitchell said residents had endured major increase in traffic, including construction vehicles, because of the large housing developments.
The relief road currently under construction in Greystones and due to be completed early next year, was "a road to nowhere" because it would be three years before it could link directly to the interchange, he said.