Madam, - Your Property Supplement of September 20th featured a plan to develop apartments on the Gortanore site in Foxrock. We represent residents and traders in Foxrock village and led the recent successful campaign to have Architectural Conservation and Conservation Area status conferred on the area, as well as a village improvement scheme as agreed in July by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
We are therefore very disappointed that we have not been consulted by the developer of the Gortanore scheme, who is said to live in this area - all the more reason to talk to his neighbours about his plans before going public with an advance PR puff. He has, however, not neglected to conduct "extensive negotiations" with the planners!
On the information provided there will be no planning gain for the village and its many users from this scheme - an appalling prospect, as this is the last available site around which the village can be remodelled.
The photo-montage shows that the buildings have been pushed almost to kerbsite at the front, leaving two acres in which the "empty nesters" can gambol! The new shops will take up any parking made available and the village will presumably be left with its chronic parking problems, recently worsened by the county council's strange decision to put double yellow lines on Brighton Road within the village.
Without adequate parking, a village improvement scheme is doomed to failure.
We stand ready to engage in dialogue and we invite the developer to meet his neighbours. - Yours, etc,
PADDY MacMAHON, Chairman, Foxrock Area Development Ltd, Foxrock, Dublin 18.