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RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION - CURRENT NEWS (Last Updated April 2013)
Griffeen Valley ET school planning application- 6th March 2013
An application to expand the Griffeen Valley ET. primary school has been entered at the planning office. The proposed extension will mean up to 240 EXTRA pupils. It also means approximately 50% LESS official parking on site. Concern has been expressed regarding emergency vehicle access to the estate at peak times.
While no objections have been expressed over the actual extension itself, major concerns have been raised over the fact that no traffic management plans whatsoever have been proposed.
A public meeting, hosted by the school, regarding the extension was held in early March. There consultants for the school and board of education stated that the access road is currently "at or over capacity" but that traffic issues outside the school were "not our concern". They also stated that their traffic study was based on children's responses to questions on how they got to school. As expected, during an ongoing campaign to get children to walk to school, most of the children said they walked.
Mention was made of an overflow carpark on basketball courts at the rear of the school, accesseable through the current teachers parking area. However, there is currently an enforcement policy in the school preventing parents using the teachers carpark during collection times with the stated reason of it being dangerous to the children to have cars going in and out from there! The overflow option does not appear to be mentioned on the plans and thus would need seperate planning permission for that use in any case.
Note should also be made of the fact that a site planning notice that should have been situated between the front gates facing outward has been placed on a gate which is regularly open. That leaves the site notice facing inward and to the right. Thus many never saw the notice before expiry of the appeal dead-line.
Spring clean-up day - 21st April 2012
Again the call to arms, or at least brushes, clippers and shovels. Its that time of year again where we ask all residents to add to the beauty of the estate and consequentially, the value of our properties.
The Clean-up Day this year is in association with An Taisce.
Should you have any spare time, you can always keep up the good work at any time of the year. Below are a few suggestions on little jobs that can help our estate look better.
1. Sweep the path and road in front of your house.
2. Cut back hedges or bushes if they are blocking or growing over paths.
3. Clip hedges so that they don’t block driver’s views as they come around corners.
4. Pick up litter from hedges, path or roads in front of your house.
5. Pick weeds etc growing in front of your house or along your walls.
Refuse sacks, gloves etc will be available on a first come first serve basis.
Register on the day with your Road Rep. who will be out and about to win a €50 voucher for Di Bella Restaurant!
Please contact our Clean-up Day coordinator Virginia on 086-1986496 for more details.
Extension to Griffeen Valley School - 30th March 2012
A letter went out to parents of children in Griffeen Valley School at the start of the holidays. The letter stated that an extension to the school is planned which would add 230 extra students over the next few years.
This could be a major issue with residents in the local area as traffic chaos already exists at certain times of the day and year. We now have rat-running to avoid school traffic, illegal parking including blocking of driveways and mounting of footpaths by moving cars. Bin lorries are failing to access the boulevard and residents can take over half an hour to escape the school blockage. Note that Clonburris has permission and may go ahead adding hundreds of more cars to the area.
AGM held, attendance excellent - 28th February 2012
With fantastic attendance, the AGM was held in the Griffeen Valley Educate Together Primary School. The meeting was productive with many problematic issues discussed.
Clonburris work started - Christmas 2011
Any hope that the Clonburris land ownership would revert to the council due to lack of development by an end of 2011 dead-line have been dashed. A small piece of work was done, one can assume only to retain ownership, by the developer. Strangely enough it appears to have involved the taking of soil from the council development of a nearby school! Is the council aiding the developer in maintaining ownership?
Kiddies XMas Party in Griffeen Youth Centre.
This year (2011) the kiddies party was on Saturday the 10th of December from 2 to 4pm. Again we used the Griffeen Centre, door around corner from ATM. Santa came and a great time was had by all.
Appeal to An Bord Planaila against chip-shop - 17th October 2011
An appeal has been lodged against the granted permission based on many grounds including
Nearness to a school
Noise concerns
Air pollution (smell) concerns
Traffic concerns
Invalid planning notices displayed
Over-provision of services in designated LOCAL centre
12 Apr 2012 - decision delayed, still waiting.
Planning granted for chip-shop - 21th September 2011
The council granted permission for the ship-shop plan in the Griffeen Centre. This is despite Di Bella only barely getting permission for take-away sales due to over-supply in a local centre (by councils own rules).
SDCC Depot in middle of Griffeen Park - 26th April 2011
An extremely controversial plan to develop a depot in the middle of the park has finally been defeated. After a massive campaign by locals and local politicians the outrageous location has been changed to south of the railway line. Having won through mistruths and intrigue, those involved in the campaign deserve a massive THANK YOU! Campaign website here.
Clonburris appeal refused - 11th April 2011
6 storey apartments, traffic chaos, crazy decision by An Bord Pleanaila. The appeal entered by us and others has been refused by An Bord Planaila with only minor changes imposed on overall design.
Application for Chip Shop in Griffeen Centre - 14th March 2011
An application for a chip-shop has been submitted for next to the chemist in the Griffeen Centre. This is an obvious over supply of food outlets in the local retail centre. Also locals already suffer from late night noise from customers and ongoing litter problems.
Luas Lucan - Ballyowen, Lucan Open Day - 2nd June 2010
The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) is currently preparing a Railway Order application for Luas Lucan (Line F1), which will run from Newcastle Road (Lucan) just south of Superquinn to Blackhorse Luas Stop, where it will link to the existing Luas Red Line. This new Luas line will connect Lucan, Liffey Valley Town Centre and Ballyfermot to Dublin City Centre.
RPA is aware that routing the tracks along Ballyowen Lane has raised concerns among residents and public representatives and following this RPA has identified two alternative alignment options.
The three options will be on display at our open evening on 2nd June 2010 in Ballyowen Community Centre and you are welcome to come along and give your views. Members of the project team will be available on the evening to answer questions.
Dublin Bus to change Lucan bus routes.
Services in Lucan and North Kildare will be enhanced with the following
changes:
More Frequent Services
Two core routes (25a, 25b) will have peak frequencies of 10 minutes or
better. The proposed 25a and 25b will replace the current 25x services
from Foxborough, Adamstown, Griffeen and Superquinn Lucan. The 25a
service will follow its current alignment to Palmerstown, and then
operate via Chapelizod Bypass to Wilton terrace (Leeson Street). The 25b
will follow the current 25x routing from Adamstown via Griffeen using
the Chapelizod Bypass to Wilton Terrace (Leeson Street). The 25x from
Dodsboro will remain.
All services operating to the city from the Lucan Road will operate to
St Stephens Green (Leeson Street)
Route 25a will offer faster journey times to the City centre through the
utilisation of the Chapelizod QBC Bypass to the City Centre
Route 25b from Adamstown will offer peak frequency of 10 minutes
operating to the City Centre (Leeson Street) via Chapelizod QBC By-pass.
Full details here:
http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Network-Direct/Network-Direct-Phase-1/Lucan/
With a nice map here:
http://www.dublinbus.ie/PageFiles/5996/Lucan%204.pdf
Estate Entrance Stones.
Through the sterling effort of Peter, we now have three entrance stones and have had them put in place for free!
This was a goal of the association since it was formed over ten years ago, but due to expense could not be achieved until recently. Still waiting to place plaque at entrance to GG Boulevard (Note that the council will not allow stone to be placed here ).
AGM was held in Griffeen Valley Educate Together School
The yearly AGM was held at 8pm on January 26th 2010 in the local Educate school.
Safety Railing for Griffeen Glen Road
A request has been submitted to the council to place railings on the path on Griffeen Glen Road at the junction of the Road and Griffeen Glen Boulevard. This is in response to motorists been seen rounding the corner from the Vale onto the road and mounting and driving on the footpath to park by the bollards. Apart from the fact that driving on any footpath is illegal, children, returning from leaving siblings at the school, are in danger of walking out from the Boulevard to the path on the Road and being hit by a car driving at speed on the footpath.
Clonburris/South Lucan - 1st Planning Application submitted
A Planning Application has been submitted to South Dublin County Council by Shelbourne Development Ltd., on the Clonburris lands, South Lucan, off Griffeen Avenue. This proposed development is for 973 dwelling units, including up to 8 storeys high, plus commercial, retail, car parking, and some local amenities. The proposed development can be viewed on www.sdublincoco.ie - click on ‘Planning Applications’ then type in ‘SD09A/0149’ and click ‘Search’.
A protest demonstration was held on Griffeen Avenue / the Outer Ring Road on the 9th of May and was attended by large numbers of concerned residents.
To note about the concerns are the following points...
- Adamstown SDZ development stalled with no market for current apartments
- No provision for school places for current needs let alone 550+ new students projected
- Surface water to feed into Griffeen River, already prone to flooding this area and village
- Massive overviewing towers of 5, 6 and even 7 stories overlooking 2 story homes
- Traffic currently a nightmare in whole area without up to 1000+ more cars
- Public transport not available for current needs and facing more cut-backs
- The existing Clonburris School traffic would then be in the middle of a housing estate
The closing date for objections has now passed ( 5pm, 18th May ).
We had hoped that those in the council and An Bord Planála would share our views about the lunacy of this planning application and reject it outright. Since then the Council has requested additional information from the developer including various changes to amoung other things building design and height, road access, Oldbridge estate access and train station access.
NEWS UPDATE : Council votes in favour of plan with a few modifications. Decision now being taken to An Bord Pleanala on appeal. Note also that current plan, if applied for now, would be illegal under new rules.
Gymnasium for the Griffeen Centre.
This is to replace six offices planned for Block 2 of the development. No structural changes are necessary for the plan, just the removal of partition walls to create an open-plan space.
Traffic Calming Scheme
After years of campaigning on behalf of residents we are delighted to announce the decision by South Dublin County Council (SDCC) to include the Griffeen Glen Estate in their next Traffic Calming Scheme.
The roads approved for placement of ramps are Griffeen Glen Road, Griffeen Glen Avenue and Griffeen Glen Drive.
We are hoping for the scheme to be in place by the end of 2009.
The SDCC will conduct a survey on the best placement of ramps along the designated roads. If you have any suggestions or objections regarding ramp placement please contact Sharon (details below).
In the interim, the Griffeen Glen Residents Association (GGRA) have placed ‘Slow Down – Children at Play’ signs at strategic points entering and leaving the estate, which will hopefully impact on the speed of cars in and out of our estate. We hope that the combination of ramps and signs will contribute somewhat to reducing speed however as residents we still need to take heed of the speed limit of 15 m.p.h. when entering and exiting the estate. With the good weather now upon us our children will be playing out on the roads and green areas in the estate.
Please be extra vigilant when driving and help to make our estate a safer place for all.
Illegal Parking Griffeen Glen Park
Over the last few months we’ve seen an escalation in illegal parking at the entrance to Griffeen Valley Park in front of Griffeen Glen Park.
The GGRA have met with one of the alleged offenders, Beech Park Football Club, to discuss the growing problem. The club secretary and chairman are totally committed to tackling the problem and have assured us that they will be talking to all players, managers and supporters in relation to parking illegally on grass areas.
We have also contacted the Parks manager in Griffeen Valley Park who has assured us that Griffeen Glen Park will be included in their next planting scheme in the autumn. We would hope to plant some trees on the areas that are used for illegal parking.
If you continue to experience problems please take note of what club they are from, their registration number and contact the GGRA who will in turn pass the numbers on to the relevant Football Club.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions for 2009 are now overdue. 2010 subs to be collected in February 2010.
Envelopes have been posted in your door and have been collected by your Road Representative and/or committee member. We appreciated you having your envelope ready for collection on the allocated date.
REMEMBER: Please ensure you only give your subscription to a person known to you e.g. road representative or a committee member.
The information collected from each envelope will go on our resident email database and will be used to keep all residents updated with news and issues for the Griffeen Glen Estate.
Subscription for the year 2009 was only €20.00 per household. Your Residents Association works hard on your behalf each year and last year your subs enabled us to:
- Make submissions on planning issues (eg. Luas F Line)
- Host our children’s Christmas party
- Organise our estate cleanup day
- Buy and erect signage for the estate
- Supply a tool loan facility, eg. extension ladder, drain rods, etc.
Remember that we are fortunate not to have to pay a management fee. Some estates in the area have to pay up to €400 per year per house. All we require to keep our Residents Association working on your behalf is €20 per year.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all residents who have paid their subs in the past and we thank you for your continued support.
Upcoming Events
- Spring Clean day: Saturday 24th of January.
Committee Successes in 2008
- Kiddies Christmas party was well attended at our new venue, the Griffeen Centre
- Pub Quiz made money and provided fun for all
- After many years of campaigning, we have succeeded in having ramps allocated for the estate
- Post box provided by AnPost at Griffeen Centre
- Luas F line to pass close to Griffeen Glen, our submission a success
Proposed Heritage Plan for South Dublin County
Click on the links below to download a pdf files of these documents. ( Use Adobe Acrobat to read file)
SDCC Heritage Plan Consultation Brochure
A Heritage Plan for South Dublin County
Recent Planning Submissions
Clonburris SDZ / LAP Proposed Development
Click on the link below to download a pdf file of our submission. ( Use Adobe Acrobat to read file)
Luas Line F
Click on the link below to download a pdf file of our submission. ( Use Adobe Acrobat to read file)
Maps available on the map page HERE.
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