Wicklow County Council will be holding its Annual Budget meeting on the 29th November and for the first time in 20 years a Councillor I will not be supporting it. The other areas, Arklow, West, Brays budgets are €9m each, Greystones District is €4.5m. The population of each area is similar. Each other area has 2 or 3 times as many staff. Yet the Local Property Tax income is highest in Greystones due to higher house prices. It’s being used as a Cash Cow by the rest of the County….
The Greater Dublin Transport Strategy 2022-2042 has been launched for consultation on the 9th November. The proposals are wide ranging include Wicklow items: The DART+ project will provide 50% more DARTs to Greystones before 2030. This follows on from my 2018 paper, on how to do it, and is being designed in detail. Consultation on the design is expected in 2022. DART to Wicklow Town will be later, possibly by battery operated DARTs which are to be ordered this year. LUAS to Bray & Environs is included. Park n’ Ride…
The plans for DART+ to Maynooth involve stopping the peak hour diesel trains from Arklow, Rathdrum, Wicklow & Kilcoole in Greystones and making the passengers transfer to the 2 DARTs per hour there. This is being done to allow 13 DARTs from Maynooth onto the North South line in the peak. ‘I am totally opposed to this as it will mean more people will use their cars, clog up the N11and be bad for Climate Change ‘said Cllr Derek Mitchell who is Chair of the Wicklow Transport Committee. Now there…
You can view the Rail and Commuter Transport Plan for East Wicklow by using the document reader below:
Cllr Derek Mitchell has asked Dublin City Council not to halve the speed of Wicklow Buses in the City Centre as is proposed. The journey time of buses to the city centre is already too long and proposals to slow them to 30 kph on the main roads would be worse. Cllr Mitchell, who is Chair of the Wicklow Transport Committee, has written to Dublin Council asking that the route of the 84X, 133, Wexford bus and Aircoach to the airport & City Centre should not be reduced to 30…
I welcome today’s announcement that 7 projects are decided as Relevant Projects to move forward to the next consent stage. We need to use the wind resources to save carbon. However I am concerned about the visual impact of the Bray & Kish Bank one. The development of a large windfarm with a smaller visual effect, well out to sea, should take priority over a small one with a larger visual effect. There should be a limit to the visual effect permitted in towns. In 2005 the Codling windfarm obtained…
I made a submission in early January but feel more is needed after the Consultation session in Arklow where I briefly made the following points: Windfarms Visual impact. I represent the Greystones Municipal District and am concerned about the Visual Impact of proposed windfarms from the land. Particularily on large towns that face the sea and place significant emphasis on maintaining an attractive vista from promenades and piers such as Greystones & Bray. These towns have made significant investments in the seafronts and vistas. Also from coastal walks such as…
Fianna Fail also opposed making development dependent on better transport. The Green Party opposed ‘improving the South East rail line’ in the Regional Planning Guidelines. I asked the Minister for Environment to override this and he has now altered the wording to ‘improve’ rail. Now the Green leader Eamonn Ryan says he will shelve upgrade plans for the N11. In April 2015 I proposed that Rezoning in Wicklow should not take place unless Public Transport and the N11 had been improved. The Green Party & Fianna Fail voted against that…
The Green Party proposal to cancel the N11 upgrade and convert 1 lane to a Bus Lane will cause total chaos in Wicklow. Speaking to Eamonn Ryan, Leader of the Green Party, on East Coast Radio I was surprised to hear that he wants to reduce the car lanes on the already jammed N11. It is essential that the bus lane is EXTRA to the existing 2 lanes South of Kilmacanoge and there must be many Express Buses. North of Kilmacanoge there may well need to be 3 car lanes….
The Council voted 21 to 8 to increase the LPT by 10% in 2020. This is the first rise in 5 years and inflation has been 3.2%. The extra money is to fund many projects including: Changing street lights to LED to save energy, Many other Climate Change measures, CCTV scheme in Greystones Each Districts fund to improve Public Areas It will also assist with funding to resurface pitches at Shoreline, Three Trout Stream Greenway to Delgany, Greystones to Wicklow Greenway study, Kilcoole Walks & Newcastle games area which we…
© 2021 Councillor Derek Mitchell.
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