Lancefort, the company which has set itself to protect heritage and the environment, has threatened to seek an injunction against Dublin Corporation if it goes ahead with plans for the Eastern Bypass.
The Draft 1998 City Development Plan provides that an Eastern Bypass route "in a bored tunnel at a minimum under Sandymount Strand" would be initiated or implemented in the five-year period of the plan.
This, the company asserted, would mean the proposed route "runs through or under Sandymount Strand which is part of a Special Protection Area for birds". In a statement yesterday, Lancefort said that an EU Habitats Directive required that the implementation of any such plan could take place only after an appropriate assessment had first been undertaken by the competent national authorities.
"No appropriate assessment has been carried out and it is not possible in the absence of the assessment to ascertain that the part of the Development Plan that includes the Eastern Bypass will not adversely affect the integrity of Sandymount Strand and the adjacent Bay, being the SPA (Specially Protected Area)," the statement said.
In a letter yesterday to the planning department at Dublin Corporation, Mr Michael Smith, director of the Lancefort Company Ltd, said that unless the corporation removed any mention of the Eastern Bypass from the draft development plan prior to full compliance with the EU Habitats Directive and informed his company accordingly within 28 days, or within a week of the formal adoption by the City Council of an adjusted development plan (whichever is the sooner), an injunction would be sought against its implementation.
He also said Lancefort would then too make a complaint to the secretary general of the Commission of the European Communities requesting it to institute proceedings against Ireland under the Treaty of Rome.
