LOCALS living alongside a residential development on the Southside are up in arms after builders were given permission to work at the site into the night.
Cosgrave Developments are currently building over 600 residential units on lands comprising part of the former Dun Laoghaire Golf Course to the north of Glenageary Road.
The planning permission allows for the construction of a mix of residential units to include apartments and townhouses in varying heights, alongside ancillary works such as car parks, bring banks and access roads.
The developer’s current planning permission allows them to work for 61 hours a week, from Monday to Friday, 7am – 6pm and on Saturdays from 8am – 2pm.
However, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has recently granted permission to extend these hours to 10pm to enable work to continue into the night, on condition that the developer gives two days’ notice to residents and the council.
Hundreds of locals living in surrounding estates, including Highthorn Woods, Glenageary Woods, Woodlawn, Royal Terrace and along Upper Glenageary Road, will be affected, claim local campaigners, who are objecting to the extension of working hours at the site.
One of the residents, who lives in Highthorn Woods, said locals have already been subjected to the noise of heavy machinery and generator-powered floodlights operating at the site.
“It is very disruptive, particularly for those with young families,” the resident, who did not want to be named, said. “The noise of the machinery is very loud. Houses vibrate during the day while at night it’s more of a constent lower level noise.
“The lights are also very bright. In fact, you could play football in the back garden at night when they’re on, it’s that bright.
“As a result, both children and adults have had their sleep disrupted.
“Simply put, we want to be able to sleep and enjoy our houses,” he added. “A total of 61 hours of construction noise a week should be enough for anyone to put up with. But now they can get extra working hours under ‘exceptional circumstances’.”
In a statement issued to Southside People, Cosgrave Developments said it had sought and been granted approval by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council for late evening working hours “for an occasional number of instances” at its development site at Cualanor, Glenageary Road Upper.
“Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has deemed that exceptional circumstances apply in this instance which warrant approval for a restricted number of late evening works,” the statement reads.
“The late evening working hours are necessary to facilitate specific concrete pour works that require a continuous working period of up to 15 hours. On these occasional events, construction works have been approved from the hours of 7am to 10pm and we will restrict construction work to these hours accordingly.”
A spokesperson for Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council said compliance submissions in relation to these works were submitted by agents for the developer on February 2 and February 5.
“These compliance submissions demonstrated exceptional circumstances to the satisfaction of the planning authority, and a schedule of outside hours works were agreed, together with a mechanism for notifying local residents,” the council’s statement adds.