Greystones Harbour Revisited

wicklow | environment | opinion/analysis Friday October 03, 2008 19:34 by Mr.Peter Brady Alias. - Concerned Citizens Action Committee.

Our country is in recession,but no slow down in site for Greystones Harbour.

This is our sixth statement.

Dear Citizens And Friends.

As we are all well aware by now our country is in recession,which will now add extra burden to many of our citizens who already are finding it difficult in making ends meet.One may now have to ask themselves the question why is it after twenty years of a booming economy that we are now finding ourselves in this situation.It appears however that even though we are being told that there is a strain on the government's finances in which they are trying to do their best in keeping the boat afloat that they are still finding it difficult.This is not surprising when we have only learnt this week from the prime time programme when a professor of economics from the university college of dublin made a public announcement on the programme that the reason why the banks are finding themselves in this financial difficulty is because they lent a hundred and ten billion euro's to dodgy developers and now can not pay this money back to the banks.

One may now have to ask themselves the question is the project at Greystones Harbour part of this scandal,because even though we are being told there is a recession on we see no slow down at all in this development.So we may now have to ask ourselves the questions again where is the money coming from for this particular project.We know its been operated under public private partnership but in saying this we know that the PPP has taken a hit in the last six months,when we have certain developers breaking certain contracts with Dublin City Council in relation to the regeneration scheme within the inner city in which the people have been waiting on new housing for the last ten years.

It appears however the recession has not hit Greystones for particular individuals who are operating there at the moment,but for the ordinary people living there who's jobs could be at risk are looking on at all of this.Where is the justification in pumping 300 million euro's into a particular project like this when under the 1999 Greystones/Delgany Development plan could have done this very same project for a quarter of the money with no apartments on the public foreshore.We at the Concerned Citizens Action Committee are holding Wicklow County Council directly responsible for this and by asking them and its county manager how can they justify this kind of money being pumped into this particular project ,when at the same time the people of Arklow are looking for clean water and a proper sewerage treatment plant for the town.

It appears however that this particular project is on the backburner for the county manager and his unelected officials who are working on certain projects in county wicklow which is not involving the people of wicklow.We know this from a certain newspaper article which was headline news in the wicklow times dated the 17th of september 2008 when it states that senior officials from Wicklow County Council are holding private meetings behind closed doors with developers and speculators.This confirms our suspicions under the heading of Greystones Harbour Deception on our first statement back in february of this year.So does this appear that these individuals are in recession when meetings like this are taking place in hotels in Wicklow and Dublin.Is the community benefiting from these meetings? when the county manager states in this newspaper article that he can do nothing about it.Do we believe this man?NO.We are calling for a public independent inquiry into the county manager and his officials who appear to be working behind the scenes and no wonder for the six thousand objections that the people of Greystones in which they objected to the building of these apartments on their public foreshore fell on deaf ears,when you have private deals of this kind going on behind closed doors.This is an absolute scandal that the people of Wicklow and Greystones have to put up with this.

As far as we are concerned at the Concerned Citizens Action Committee there is a dictatorship policy coming out of Wicklow County Council which we have been proven to be right by this newspaper article.It is now time to put this individuals out of business and give control of local government back to the people which is outside of their control at the moment.We are also calling on the Greystones Chamber Of Commerce in making a public statement in relation to the 1999 Greystones/Delgany Development plan which protects the public foreshore at the north beach Greystones which you will see on page 10 of the plan,which is also built into the Wicklow County Development Plan of 2004.Would you please come clean with the people of Greystones because up to now you have remained silent on this particular subject which you know very well was the original local area plan for Greystones and Delgany and was removed by the local politicians in making way for 341 residential units to be built out on the public foreshore,which is a disgrace by all of you to let this happen.

And finally we wish to say to you all that you could not remove the 1999 plan from the county development plan which remains there to this day and protects the public foreshore which you's are planning to build your apartments on.As you know this is highly illegal.We will conclude by saying that local government needs to be reformed URGENTLY and that emergency legislation needs to be brought in by the minister of the environment Mr. John Gormley on all county managers and his unelected officials who are making policy all the time over the elected body who are now going along with them.This has left the door wide open for many years for Corruption to prevail this matter is in the hands of a member of the european parliament who is looking into this at present and as you know we are compiling our petition for the petitions committee of europe in which we are getting a great response.We would like to thank you the members of our community for this in which will keep you updated as to the proceedings in relation to our petition for the people of Greystones.We would just like to mention we have put up a number of photographs for your consideration which are dealing with three harbour marina's on the east coast.

Thanking You All Once Again Mr.Peter Brady Of The Concerned Citizens Action Committee For Bray And Greystones.

If You Want To Contact Us Email Us At fightingcorruptioninwicklow@hotmail.com.