Plans to transform Maynooth into a designated town centre for north Kildare have been rejected by Kildare County Council, despite warnings from the county manager.
The members voted instead for part of a 500-acre greenfield site at Collinstown, Leixlip, to host the major retail centre. Council legal representatives WA Osborne stressed it could face legal action for ignoring advice in favour of Maynooth.
County manager Niall Bradley had urged the members not to zone the Collinstown site for retail use. "This could well end up in court and members could be asked what advice they had taken and when," he said.
Councillors were told north Kildare needed a new town centre to stop 47 per cent of the population leaving the county to shop.
Consultants RPS McHugh said Collinstown did not fall within the statutory policies set out in the retail planning strategy of the greater Dublin area, the retail planning guidelines, the draft Kildare retail strategy and the northeast Kildare integrated framework plan for land use and transportation.
Cllr John McGinley said he had never seen a more flawed document than the integrated framework plan in his 12 years on the council.
The report stated that Maynooth's traffic problems were being caused by the bad traffic signalling system. "We would have solved that if that was the case," he said.
He added that the report stated it only took three to four minutes to get from one end of the town to the other. "They must have done that in the middle of the night with the lights switched off," he said.
"To tell the people of Maynooth that you would have 3,000 extra cars coming into their town, that would be intolerable."