RESIDENTS GROUPS in Ringsend and Sandymount are to lodge objections with An Bord Pleanála against Dublin City Council’s plans to buy public land to facilitate the Poolbeg incinerator.
The council is planning to compulsory purchase 65 plots of land along the shoreline near the incinerator site to develop a water cooling facility for the 600,000 tonne capacity incinerator.
However local residents said the compulsory purchase order (CPO) takes in public footpaths and roads and could cut their access to Shelly Banks beach. Representatives of private waste companies are calling for An Bord Pleanála to hold a public hearing on the council’s application.
Covanta, the company building the incinerator, asked the council to buy the land so that it does not have to wait for Minister for the Environment John Gormley to grant a foreshore licence to use water from the river Liffey for a cooling system for the plant.
An application for the foreshore licence was made in 2008. A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said responsibility for foreshore licences was only transferred to the Minister last January and there was a backlog of 700 applications. The Poolbeg application would be dealt with in due course he said.
However assistant city manager Séamus Lyons said the delay in securing the licence was “hindering progress on construction of the plant”.
However, residents have said they will block the council’s plans. The land the council wants to acquire takes in part of Pigeon House Road, which is used to access the southern end of the peninsula. Damien Cassidy, chairman of the Ringsend, Sandymount and Irishtown Environmental group said they were already formulating an objection to the CPO. “If the council gets to go ahead with this land-grab they will be cutting through our right of way to the Shelly Banks.”
A spokeswoman for the council said it had no intention of blocking the public right of way.
