Developers all over the country should learn a thing or two from the Finnish company which has started construction on a peat-powered generating plant at Clonbullogue, near Edenderry, Co Offaly.
Fortum, the company behind the development of the £120 million plant, held a public meeting in Edenderry recently to bring local people up to date with what is going on at the site.
The technical director of the company, Mr Michael Hoven, told the meeting that the company was very sorry that the transportation of gravel to the site was making the roads dirty.
He said the company had tried everything to keep the roads clean, including spraying them in the evenings and he hoped the construction of a by-pass road would ease traffic problems.
He apologised for a small power cut which had happened during the construction when an excavator had hit an overhead power line.
No one was injured, he said, and the matter had been reported to the Health and Safety Authority.
He told the small attendance at the meeting that during the excavation stage the archaeological supervisors had discovered an arrow head but the find was not of major significance and did not delay work.
He said that the site development work, which began on January 18th last, had progressed beyond the piling stage and the foundations were being laid around St Patrick's Day.
The meeting was also told that a special generator was being brought in by the company to provide electricity during the construction stage so the quality of the supply to the town of Edenderry would not be disrupted by the extra power demands on site.
Mr Hoven also outlined possible disruptions to come, including the transportation of the 70-metre high chimney stack which will be erected in December 2000.
That, he said, will have to come in on heavy vehicles from Dublin port to the site down the main Dublin-Galway road, through Tullamore and Daingean.
The Edenderry/Enfield road could not carry the weight of the loads.
He explained that the larger convoys would travel at night and would be accompanied by gardai but, he added that less than 20 per cent of the heavy load would be transported through the country.
The team fielded a number of questions from local people about the source of water they would use for the generation of the 120 MW of electricity at the plant and the degree of local employment at the construction stage.
Little wonder then that the Euro Peat 1 station is expected to be completed ahead of schedule and with a transparency which is very refreshing indeed.