`Too late' to alter £200 million Dublin sewage plant upgrading

Tender documents for a £200 million upgrading of Dublin Corporation's main sewage treatment plant at Ringsend are expected to be issued on November 15th, with no changes to protect the amenity of Pigeon House Harbour. The corporation maintains it is too late to alter the scheme, as proposed by the Dublin Flagship Initiative (DFI), a group of artists, architects, engineers and technologists who have been lobbying to have part of the plant relocated.

The DFI has suggested an alternative site currently owned by Dublin Port for the proposed extension to the sewage works which would avoid having it located along the Liffey frontage and next to the historic harbour.

"Unless public and political will is generated now to deal with this matter, the future potential of this space will be destroyed," said Mr Frank Hughes, an architect and spokesman for the Dublin Flagship Initiative.

At a recent meeting with the corporation, he was told by Mr Matt Twomey, assistant city manager, that all interested parties had an opportunity of commenting on the environmental impact statement (EIS) published last January.

Mr Twomey said that modifying the site would cause substantial delay and run the risk of losing EU funding for the project, and that tendering procedures were already at an advanced stage.

However, Mr Hughes said the EIS had been published in a "planning void", while a draft master plan was being prepared for the whole Dublin docklands area including the Poolbeg peninsula, where the sewage works are located.

He said An Taisce, the Arts Council, Bord Failte and local residents' groups had all made representations to the corporation and the Minister for the Environment. Mr Hughes reiterated that the adjoining site to the west was a much more logical location for the project and, since it was a "design and build" contract, the successful tenderers could tailor their scheme to suit it.

He rejected the corporation's view that a new EIS would have to be carried out if the location was changed, saying that any such requirement could be set aside by ministerial order because it would be in the public interest.

Mr Hughes also maintained that if the importance of Pigeon House Harbour in terms of Dublin's heritage and future development was explained to the European Commission, it would look favourably on an amended scheme.

"We are not trying to stop the project but to redress a collective oversight in planning in a mature and responsible manner," he said. "If the Government acts now, it will give credence to their own objectives in the docklands."

A spokeswoman for the corporation said yesterday that Mr Hughes and his colleagues had had ample opportunity to express their views during the public consultation phase on the sewage treatment project, but had not done so.