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Meath

A thought from Chomsky
2008-06-07 00:27:00
Think about this analysis from Chomsky in the context of school facilities in East Meath. GMS: In the so-called reconstruction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2004, one of the policy-initiatives championed by the Bush administration right up to the present was the dismantling of the New Orleans public school system. The New York Times ...
Hope government doesn?t cave to property interests
2008-05-25 14:57:00
Reported in the Tribune, the builders want the government to give people money to buy houses. Obviously this is daftness of the higher order. Have people not copped on that the last thing people need to do is buy another house, especially one where people are expected to burn expenses petrol to get to work. ...
True cost of living in East Meath Utopia
2008-05-14 00:35:00
Are people still coming to East Meath for the bucolic bliss? By that I mean stone age bucolic bliss where we can live out our fantasies as cavemen with none of the modern distractions of an education system or any form of culture. We can head down to to the local shopping centre to hunt ...
Thoughts on Laytown school
2008-04-27 11:23:00
The local press is full of comentary on the third annual Laytown school crisis. The reaction is odd to say the least. It seems that a local landowner whose family previously owned the land where the school will be built has retained a key parcel of land and that the department of education included development ...
Meath Councillor Interacts With ?The Youth?
2008-04-16 10:06:00
There was an interesting confrontation between FF Councillor Nick Killian, chairman of Meath County Council and local youths in Ratoath. Interesting because it captured a robust exchange between the councillor and the youths which culminated in Killian doing a “John Prescott” and lunging for one of the teenagers after been called a fat bastard after ...
New Dublin Transport Authority to Sort Everything
2008-04-15 00:06:00
A new Dublin Transport Authority was launched today with the remit of sorting all the problems. The days of building jumbo housing estates in fields with not even a bit of tarmac linking them to the wild bohreen needed to access the county road that will take the intrepid nsomniac commuters cross country to West ...
East Meath and the Environment
2008-04-11 22:04:00
Ireland has the worst planning in Europe. Meath has the worst planning in Ireland East Meath has the worst planning in Meath. Black and proud, now pour the concrete. A developer wants to build a road through a Natural Heritage Area behind my house. This is a habitat of threatened bird species and otters and orchids. Doing a bit of ...
Jobs for the boys
2008-04-02 11:32:00
Remember we commented before about how huge housing developments were justified by the promise of “jobs”. You know, 7000 of them in Stamullen at a “Swedish style garden centre” and other assorted shopping centres. Well someone far smarter than me has analysed the situation brilliantly. He puts it like this: There is no nonsense so gross that ...
The Penny is Finally Beginning to Drop
2008-03-27 21:13:00
The penny is finally beginning to drop that there is something seriously wrong with the planning situation in East Meath. The residents of Mornington Park in Donacarney can’t believe that permission has been granted for 713 houses for 2000 people in area devoid of services, roads and employment. Read the local news reports HERE and ...
From the Archives
2008-03-24 21:04:00
We came across a few clippings from the archives of Septemper 2005. First the monster Bryanstown scheme came to light with a plan for 1300 houses. Read the article in the Irish Times HERE. It’s amazing how the project has increased first to 5000 houses and now to 8000 houses in the space of less than ...
Schools
2008-03-21 00:25:00
As part of a series this week there was an item on the 6 O’Clock News tonight about the ongoing school situation in the country. As the piece points out there are up to 100,000 new children entering the system in the next five years and the Department of Education and Science cannot build schools. ...
700 houses in Donacarney
2008-03-19 14:31:00
Courtesy of Senator Dominic Hannigan, news that An Bord Pleanala overruled its owne inspector and granted planing permission for enough houseing for 2000 people in Donacarney, that’s enough to increase the Coastal population by more than 35%. I would urge everyone to invest an hour and actually read the inspectors report to hear what a trained ...
Outer Orbital Route Cancelled
2008-03-13 14:45:00
It’s amazing, the government decided to cancel the ?2B outer orbital route that would have linked Drogehda-Navan-Trim-Naas. It was announced with great fanfare less than a year ago, but the cancellation of the biggest infrastructure project in the state doesn’t even get a mention in the national press. Indeed the Indo is still puffing about ...
Jobs
2008-03-13 14:28:00
I get annoyed when a new shopping centre is PRed with the promise of “jobs”, both in the construction phase and in the operation phase. See here and here. You get muck like this. OK in the 80’s and early nineties any kind of job was welcome and indeed people queued to work in Abrakebabra. But lads ...
Climate Change Impact Assessment of Meath County Development Plan
2008-03-07 14:32:00
We were struck in the last week with the utter absurdity of the government’s approach to climate change. It is now accepted that if the average global temperature rises by more than 2 centigrade then 10’s of millions of people will die and many millions more will be impoverished. Ultimately it could destroy the conditions ...
NRA on a different planet
2008-03-04 22:08:00
Listen to this Derek Mooney interview with the former chairman of the National Roads authority(46:00 in). He claims that a majority of people favour tolls and that without them there would be no roads in Ireland. They then interviewed people in Drogheda to hear what they thought about the toll and the effect on Drogheda.
Just how bad is it going to get?
2008-02-24 00:14:00
Well, following on from the previous post we decided to analyse the plans and point out what the area population projections are looking like. The relevant documents include the Meath County Development Plan, the so-called Planning Strategy for the Greater Drogheda Area, and the Local Area Plan for the Drogheda Environs (in Meath). It doesn’t look ...
8000 houses in Drogheda Environs! WTF
2008-02-23 23:45:00
An article in last week’s Drogheda Indo unwittingly dropped something of a bombshell. The article itself was some kind of PR piece about the future opening of a half-built shopping centre in Grangerath, the massive sprawling (but well laid out) housing estate on the southern edge of Drogheda. Whether or not this is news is ...
Urban design to combat obesity?
2008-02-18 12:04:00
Not in East Meath. Many people cannot even get from their houses to the main road without a car in our area, not to mention getting to shop, bus stop, train station or to work. As we already pointed out 75% of the population of East Meath travels to work or school by car, a ...
Planning for development 10% size of Drogheda submitted
2008-02-17 10:43:00
The Tribune reports that planning has been submitted by a developer for 1200 houses on the North side of Drogheda. The development would increase the number of houses in Drogheda by 10% in less than six years. It is part of a massive 7000 houses plan for the “Northern Environs” of Drogheda that could add ...
Youtube Version of Prime Time Programme
2008-02-15 20:49:00
Sound and dubbing not great. See post below for links to original source.
Links to Primetime Show on East Meath
2008-02-14 00:10:00
Here they are Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
East Meath on Primetime
2008-02-12 23:55:00
Laytown featured on Prime Time tonight in a piece focussing on the new residential planning guidelines launced by the Greens yesterday. I’ll get a link and clip when it goes on the web so stay tuned. To be honest my gut feeling in all this is that we are doomed if this is all we have ...
Councillors Personally Liable for Poor Planning?
2007-11-13 00:14:00
Well said in the editorial of the Irish Times (sub reqd), calling for local authority councillors to be made personally liable for poor zoning decisions which give rise to refusals of permission and compensation claims against the local authorities. Will it happen, will if f**k. Local councillors should be made accountable for their actions when they ignore ...
Zoning Gone Bad
2007-11-11 00:43:00
Strong words reported from the head of An Bord Pleanala regarding crazy zoning by local authorities. He raises the spectre that local authorities may be liable for damages due to improper land zoning decisions. The Chairperson said he noted the exercise by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government of his powers to intervene ...
Commuting Statistics for East Meath
2007-11-11 00:23:00
We analysed the commuting statistics contained in the 2006 census for East Meath. For this purpose East Meath includes the part of the St Mary’s DED in Meath and the Julianstown DED. Out of a population of 17,333 11,189 were over five and their commuting data were analysed in the census. (As an aside this ...
Drogheda Environs Planning Process Launched
2007-10-25 14:28:00
Meath County Council advertised for submissions regarding the biggest planning proposal yet in East Meath. They are looking for submissions regarding the making of a Local Area Plan for the Drogheda Environs, a lump of ground stretching from the M1 all the way over to Donacarney. The lands include the red area on the map, ...
The NRA strikes back
2007-10-24 21:20:00
Interesting submission from the NRA regarding plans to build 500-1000 more houses in Stamullen. The development in Stamullen seems to be predicated on one of those dodgy deals involving getting pitches for houses that are all the rage nowadays. This is what the NRA had to say: This submission sets out that the NRA are seriously concerned ...
Good Neighbourhoods!
2007-10-15 22:46:00
Good article in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times yesterday regarding the regeneration of some horrific local authority states in Limerick City. Some choice quotes from the article: From a former local authority engineer a combination of bad planning, inept management, and wilful official indiference is to blame for creating ghettoes. Limerick’s crime problem…is a hangover ...
Planning, Estates, The Sunday Times, Marian Finucane
2007-10-14 23:55:00
Comments on the Marian Finucane show (1:07 in) regarding an article in the Sunday Times (no link). Bottom line they have had to demolish about 1500 houses in several estates in Limerick because they are so disfunctional that this is the only solution to the criminality in these areas. Someone has copped on that a century old ...
5000 Houses?Not in South County Dublin
2007-10-08 22:27:00
South County Dublin County Council votes against the construction of 5000 houses. Some comentary here. Interesting that this jumbo development had the kicker that 300 locals would be given cheap houses. Hardly a good way to do sustainable planning and development. When will the lesson be learnt that the acceptance of mega sprawl developments has ...
No Thinking about The East Meath Situation
2007-10-08 20:17:00
You know the news about the imposition of the parking fee at Gormanston station typifies the lethargic and blinkered approach to things in our area. Recently it emerged that there would be a charge for the new car park at Gormanston station, a station all but inaccessible except by car. It is not at all clear ...
East Meath Houses Statistics from Census
2007-09-21 20:09:00
The remarkable spate of house building in East Meath was recently reveaed in the census results. The census reported on the year of construction for each house surveyed. The graph below details the results. UP until the year 2000, except for a mini-boom in the early 1970’s there were never more than a few hundred ...
Senator Hannigan Calls for East Meath Local Authority
2007-09-21 00:41:00
Newly elected Senator, Dominic Hannigan has called for the establishment of an East Meath local authority in this week’s (September 19) Drogheda Indo. He says that the Meath County Council Administration and elected members operating out of Navan and Duleek are too far removed from the situation on the ground in East Meath. He also ...
High Rise versus Sprawl
2007-09-15 23:58:00
There’s a big deal happening in Dublin. Developers want to build high density, high rise accommodation in the centre of Dublin in Ballsbridge. This could be a turning point for Ireland. Out here in East Meath we are beginning to see first hand the true horror of low density commuting slums being built into every available ...
5000 Houses: Misleading Headlines in Drogheda Leader
2007-09-14 00:00:00
We are surprised that the Drogheda Leader would print an obviously misleading headline regarding the Drogheda United Development of 5000 houses, equivalent to Balbriggan, on the south side of Drogheda. The headline falsely states that the go-ahead has been given for a stadium and would perhaps deter interested parties from making submissions on the application. Whilst ...
Solution to School Crisis
2007-09-13 18:33:00
Having commented somewhat on the school crises in the last couple of weeks, we are proposing the following way to solve the problem. Our elected represetatives need to bring together a committee of stakeholders including parents and teachers and do the following. 1. Declare that the education system in East Meath is in a state of emergency ...
Number of houses for sale soars
2007-09-06 22:46:00
It’s been a while since we updated our daft housing index. It will be recalled that we started counting the number of houses for sale in both the East Meath area (Laytown, Bettystown, Donacarney, Mornington and Julianstown) and Drogheda on the daft.ie website. The index started in the middle of October 2006 and since then ...
East Meath Retail
2007-09-05 21:39:00
Big splurge in the Drogheda Indo about the retail scene in the area. Massive shopping centres coming on line include Bettystown, Colpe and Donore Industrial Estate. Favourite quote from the developer of Bettystown “town centre”. Developer Pat Neville says he is ‘building a vibrant town centre so that people moving here are buying into a real town ...
Signs of poor planning quality in Meath
2007-09-04 21:18:00
From the Times. Firstly Councillors are amending the County Development Plan only a couple of months after they made it. Could they not have gotten it right the first time? At the same time the County Manager admits the council cannot supply a good quality planning service due to a high staff turnover. Wonder why ...
Laytown School - Let?s feel happy
2007-09-04 00:41:00
What’s the betting that the local papers will be full of grinning politicians at the “opening” of the new school in Laytown. Thomas Byrne to the forefront “delivering” on his “committment” to the area. Hypocrites. These people should come with a health warning: They are supposed to help us and represent us, not to f**k us up. These ...
Laytown School Saga Grinds On
2007-09-02 11:08:00
On cue, and as predicted, Deputy Thomas Byrne, TD, representative for some of the voters of Meath East is associating himself with the “opening” of the temporary school in Laytown. This is a school with which the new TD has had virtually no involvement for the simple reason that he was not a TD, councillor, ...
Who do councillors really represent?
2007-08-29 21:44:00
Councillors in Trim are appealing to people to stop objecting to some sort of out-of-town retail development and to a SuperValu development in the centre of the Heritage Town. They seem to have linked the provision of an OPW office building to the construction of a Supervalu, although one has to ask why you need to ...
Laytown School Saga: One Year On
2007-08-25 00:33:00
It’s exactly one year since there was major outrage concerning Laytown School. In year there were many false alarms and finally the shell of a “temporary” school is emerging in Laytown. There are also hints a couple more “temporary” schools are taking shape elsewhere. No doubt the 2009 local elections will bring another wave of ...
Planning Submitted for ?Impossible? Stadium
2007-08-05 18:53:00
Articles in the papers these past two weeks are saying that Drogheda Utd have submitted plans to build their stadium but not the 5000 houses. Readers will recall that there was a major PR campaign in March aimed at circumventing the relevant planning rules in order to fast-track a decision on the massive development which ...
Meath Councillor Paints a Bleak Picture
2007-08-02 21:44:00
This is an excellent letter in this week’s Meath Chronicle, from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Cllr Jim Holloway paints a bleak picture of a depressed local administration for Meath. I can’t add to this. Dear sir - ?BLG? is Better Local Government and was launched some years ago as the new way for county ...
Excellent Flooding Resource
2007-07-29 10:30:00
I came accross this excellent resource for flooding. In the month that England is under severe flooding and in an era in East Meath where the message is zone and build and worry about the flooding later this resource is timely. Go to http://www.floodmaps.ie/ you can search by town or townland and there is archived official ...
Good News on Incineration
2007-07-29 10:06:00
From the Business Post: Gormley moves against incineration projects 29 July 2007 By John Burke The government is set to deliver a crippling blow to the long-term viability of incineration projects in Ireland. The Sunday Business Post has learned that Minister for the Environment John Gormley has told local authorities in recent days that any move to skew ...
One more spin on the rezoning merry-go-round
2007-07-24 22:40:00
Interestingly the new and Green Minister for the Environment has stepped into the breach and has for the first time used powers to overturn zoning in a County Development plan. It was reported that he has ordered Monaghan County Council to vary the development plan which saw zoning equivalent to a population increase of over ...
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