APPEALS ARE expected to be made to An Bord Pleanála against Kildare County Council’s decision to approve plans for a new road network that opponents claim will compromise the setting of Castletown House in Celbridge.
The council’s planners also agreed in principle to a proposal by developers Devondale Ltd for a new bridge over the Liffey within sight of Castletown’s gates – although the company will have to make a new application for its design.
The conditions also require Devondale to enter into a legal agreement with the council within six months relating to the delivery of the infrastructure and to carry the full costs of statutory procedures, including a compulsory purchase order.
Some 260 objections were received from the Department of the Environment, the Office of Public Works – which maintains Castletown House – the Castletown Foundation, An Taisce, the Irish Georgian Society and local groups and individuals.
It has been a long-standing plan by the council, going back as far as 1979, to provide a new bridge over the Liffey at this location. Now the developers would have to pay for it in order to facilitate a major scheme at the adjoining Donaghcumper demesne.
Devondale has prepared a masterplan for an extension of Celbridge town centre consisting of multi-storey blocks with an “utterly inappropriate urban idiom”, according to planning consultant Jeanne Meldon, acting for the Celbridge Action Alliance.
“There is no justification or need for this development given that a regional retail centre is planned for the north Kildare area at Collinstown, between Maynooth and Leixlip, as part of the county development plan and Greater Dublin Area retail strategy.
“This development would pose a significant threat not only to Celbridge and to the demesne of Donaghcumper in which it is to be located, but also to Castletown House and demesne as the roads, and in due course the buildings, would be highly visible.”
Ms Meldon said the proposed traffic route, which would also carry buses and trucks, would run directly in front of Castletown’s gates, linking the new bridge with the existing Maynooth road, severing the connection between Castletown’s avenue and the main street.
“The development also comprises three junctions with the Dublin road and demolition of large sections of the demesne boundary wall,” she said, adding that this stone wall was a “very significant feature of the entrance to the historic village of Celbridge”.
The proposed road network and the town centre extension as envisaged would be “in direct conflict with the restoration work at Castletown” and would compromise the setting of other protected structures in the vicinity.
Ms Meldon’s submission to the council said the lands “are subject to flooding, as evidenced by the floods experienced in the Celbridge area in November 2009”.
A separate application by Devondale for 108 houses is still awaiting a decision by Bord Pleanála following a five-day oral hearing last November.