COMMENT: There’s gold in them thar gardens

THERE’S been a lot of talk about gardens in the past week. Call it a funny coincidence, but I was recently mowing the lawn and found myself moaning about the size of my own front garden – it’s simply far too big to maintain unless you’re a green fingered type and have a passion for that sort of thing.

For some bizarre reason, my Celtic Tiger era developer decided in his wisdom to make my back garden smaller than the front. To compensate, he provided me with a free brick barbecue, although I suspect that this may have been secretly added to the purchase price. If that was the case, it means I have a mortgage on a home and a barbecue (which is now used as a coal bunker).

So imagine my surprise when I learned that owners of up to 1,300 front gardens are potentially in for a bumper windfall as part of the ambitious Bus Connects project, which was announced by the National Transport Authority (NTA) last week. While exact details have yet to be revealed, it has been reported that affected householders could be in line for payouts of as much as €25,000 per square metre if their gardens are required under compulsory purchase orders.

Bus Connects will form part of a major overhaul of the bus system. A network of new bus corridors will be provided on the busiest routes in and out of the city centre and journey times will be improved by up to 50 percent, according to the NTA. All going to plan, there will be approximately 230 kilometres of continuous bus lanes on 16 of the city’s busiest routes.

Householders living along the confirmed routes won’t know until later in the year if part of their gardens will be required.

 However, in the meantime, many fears will have been allayed by the lure of the compensation lolly being dangled in the hope that Bus Connects can avoid being delayed by lengthy and costly legal challenges.

For me, this would represent a win-win situation: a few extra grand in the bank; a more reliable bus service for the city; and a smaller front lawn to maintain. I was bitterly disappointed to discover that none of the proposed new bus corridors will pass by my property.

It will be interesting to see how this plan plays out when the affected households are notified. Will the prospect of generous payouts be enough to help smooth the passage of the Bus Connects project? The devil, as they say, will be in the detail.