Bord Pleanala decided on the 6th April that the changes to include 34 extra homes in the Harbour Development need to have an Environmental Impact Statement. These changes will then have to be assessed by the Bord, the fifth time the Bord will decide on the Harbour Plan. This further delays the project by possibly a year. It had been hoped that the approval of the extra homes by Wicklow County Council would be adequate so that work could proceed and we can get the hoardings down. However ex Labour Councillor Fiachra Etchingham appealed the Councils decision to the Bord who have now ruled against the Council.
 
‘A great harbour has been built in 3 years, which is a big Engineering achievement, less time than the Bord will have taken to consider the original plan and these subsequent modest changes. We need much less bureaucracy in Ireland if we are to cope with changing times’.
 
In an earlier change 19 previously approved apartments had been replaced by a Community Health Centre. However the Bord ignored this reduction and its main reason for refusal was that the scheme was 19 apartments over the 375 homes defined in the Town Plan which is not correct. ‘A new procedure between Council officials and the Bord is needed to ensure the facts are correct’.

This appeal and decision are not helpful in securing funding from NAMA for the Health Centre to go ahead.