Councillors condemn 'drip, drip' nature of information provision
Wednesday June 02 2010
THE first councillors hearing complaints from their constituents about Fingal County Council's plans to turn a sizeable portion of the county's open spaces into meadowland have lined up to criticise the project.
With protestors looking on, councillors from the Malahide/Howth electoral ward queued up to condemn the ambitious 'Growing Places' policy which the council says is an attempt to turn 'bland' manicured open spaces into something more colourful and interesting.
But it seems that residents do not want the change and want to preserve their open spaces and the councillors on the committee were unanimously on their side.
Cllr Eoghan O'Brien (FF) said the areas chosen to introduce the new policy were 'at best, ill-conceived'. He said he could see some logic to the plan being piloted in places like Malahide Demesne or Robswall Park but not on open spaces in estates that were used by 'kids playing football or people walking their dogs'.
He criticised the council for the 'drip, drip' nature of information to the public on the project and said that a council leaflet on the subject that was being put through letter boxes in affected estates 'tries to put a spin on it'.
'Any tax-payer in Fingal will see this just as a way of cutting costs,' Cllr O'Brien said bluntly. He added: 'I think you will have an uprising on your hands If this proceeds.'
Cllr Alan Farrell (FG) agreed, saying that the new policy was ' illadvised'. Cllr Farrell believed the problem was more than the visual impact of letting the grass on open spaces grow freely - he said the policy raised safety issues.
The Fine Gael councillor said that the result of the policy would be that children would have to travel further to find open space to have a ' kickabout', further away from their homes and adult supervision.
He also feared that litter would congregate on 'unkempt' open spaces, a point stressed by his Fine Gael colleague, Cllr Joan Maher.
Cllr Farrell said that if the council was 'hell bent' on implementing the policy then consultation with the local community would have to improve and people needed to be told why certain areas were chosen for the experiment over others.
Cllr Cian O'Callaghan (Lab) complained that when councillors were first presented with the policy they were given no indication the council was about to implement it 'without consulting with the members (of the council) or the community'.
'We have been misinformed on this issue which makes it more difficult to believe what is being said now,' he said.
Cllr Peter Coyle (Lab) said the policy was being implemented too quickly and without proper consultation. He said: ' We have to wind back what has been done to date ad gradually build a system that we as councillors can sell and the public can buy into.'
- John MANNING
