SOUTH Dublin County Council has ruled out a proposal that a strip of land earmarked for a link road should be used as garden allotments for the area.
Local horticultural enthusiasts in Rathfarnham have called on the council to consider using the vacant strip of land, located near the Nutgrove Shopping Centre, as garden allotments.
The approximately 500-metre long piece of land, which is situated between Barton Road West and Barton Road East, near Loreto Park, is in the council’s County Development Plan as a road reservation for the Barton Road East Extension.
The council is planning to build a cycle path through the land, as well as a footpath and landscaping.
However, it doesn’t have any immediate plans to build a road on the strip. The road reservation alone takes up about half of the width of the strip, which is about 20 metres wide.
Kevin Dennehy of the Dublin Growers’ Association noted that there are currently some 497 people on a waiting list for allotments in the council’s area.
He believes the strip of land could help to significantly reduce the number of those on the waiting list.
“We were hoping that the work to turn the land into allotments could be done together with the work on the cycle path,
? he said.
“This cycle path will only be three metres wide. You could fit anything from 70 to 100 medium to normal size allotments in there.
“If they could put them in, the council would make money from them by leasing the allotments.
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He claimed that the strip of land currently attracts anti-social behavior and maintains that the allotments would put an end to this.
Suzanne McEneaney, who is a local resident and Green Party member, supports the allotment proposal. She said most locals were sceptical that the link road project would ever go ahead.
“These proposals for the road have been on the County Development Plan for years,
? she said.
“In the meantime the land is going to waste. People could be offered allotments and charged a yearly rent and it would have to be written into a contract.
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However, John McLoughlin, a senior engineer at the council’s Roads and Traffic Department, said it would be unfair to allow for the development of allotments on the strip of land as the council might develop the road there at some point in the future.
“It would be a little unfair of us to allow allotments where we are going to build a road in a couple of years,
? he said.
“We have a design done for the Barton Road extension and if we got money in the morning we could start it. But if there were allotments in it we would have a difficulty. You can’t give allotments without giving some kind of a guarantee of tenure of some shape or form.
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