The growth of villages in Dublin's hinterland seems to challenge the national plan for the development of major 'gateway' towns, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor with the Irish Times.
Whatever about the designation of Athlone, Mullingar and Tullamore, Co Offaly, as a hydra-headed "gateway" under the National Spatial Strategy, much of Co Westmeath's growth over the next decade is likely to be focused on a necklace of villages strung out along the future M6 motorway. In Rochfortbridge, which has already seen housing estates springing up to cater for the overspill from Dublin, indigenous residents are fearful of it "becoming a mini-Tallaght or Blanchardstown".
Kinnegad is going the same way and a similar fate lies in store for Delvin, Kilbeggan and Milltownpass.
Kinnegad's population more than doubled from 652 to 1,425 between 1996 and 2002. Rochfortbridge, seven miles further west, grew by only 0.4 per cent between 1991 and 1996, but has since soared by 53 per cent (to 1,537) as a result of increasing pressure for housing in the area from Dublin commuters.
Under the local plan for Rochfortbridge adopted last November, 168 acres on the outskirts of the village were zoned residential, much of which has either been developed or carries planning permission for housing. This would cater for a further 2,200 people, based on a density of 12 homes per acre.
Westmeath County Council concedes the need for a local plan arose "because of the unprecedented demand for residential development land in the Rochfortbridge area and the need to properly plan for future expansion of the village in a co-ordinated and sustainable manner".
Thus, the village was identified as a priority growth area. To keep pace with development pressures, its sewage treatment plant, which had a capacity for 1,500, is being expanded to cater for a population equivalent of 5,000 - including any industry which might be attracted by its "highly strategic location".
Though the local plan, which was drafted by consultants DTZ Pieda, describes Rochfortbridge as "an ideal location for industrial and commercial growth", it zones only 12 acres of land for industrial use.
There is no bus service to the nearest employment centre, Mullingar, nine miles to the north.
In response to local fears that the village was turning into another dormitory for Dublin, the volume of land zoned for residential development was slightly reduced - an unusual occurrence in itself. But it seems unlikely that the housing estates yet to be built will be any less bland than what's there already.
Though the county council's planners favour a more "village-type" design, the councillors couldn't care less what the new housing looks like. Yet the standard suburban estates tacked on to the village, as if they were bits of Ballinteer, are located directly opposite a model Bord na Mona housing scheme.
Much of the running in the race to cash in on Dublin's relentless sprawl has been made by a group of Westmeath councillors known as the "Three Wise Men" - Donie Cassidy TD (FF), Frank McDermott (FG) and P.J. O'Shaughnessy (FF). The latter, indeed, has become one of the direct beneficiaries.
Last October, 60 acres of land outside the village of Delvin - one parcel owned by O'Shaughnessy and the other by Pat Cogan, McDermott's former election agent - was rezoned for residential development against planning advice, as conveyed to the council by the county manager, Ann McGuinness.
She pointed out that planning permissions granted in Delvin would nearly double its population to 600. A further 163 acres were already zoned residential, with the capacity to provide for an extra 1,400 people. The two parcels being added were also remote from the village and could impede its development.
Fears were expressed by local residents that the rezonings would turn Delvin into "another Rochfortbridge", with a population exceeding 4,000 - more than seven times the current figure. But Cassidy claimed the village was "dying on its feet", and new houses had to be built to ensure it didn't become "a wilderness".
According to him, Delvin's population had fallen by 11 per cent in the previous five years while the rest of Co Westmeath was "booming".
In fact, the village - chiefly known as the birthplace of Brinsley MacNamara, author of The Valley of the Squinting Windows - recorded a 6.5 per cent increase in the 2002 Census.
Asked why greenfield sites one kilometre away from the village should be rezoned, Cassidy said the intermediate land was not available because its owners "don't want to sell". He acknowledged one of his business activities was house-building but he said he wasn't interested in building in Delvin.
Minutes of meetings of the Coole electoral area committee, which includes Delvin, show O'Shaughnessy himself was the first person to suggest that lands on the Mullingar road, including his own, should be rezoned. When this was rejected by the planners at committee stage, his two council colleagues voted for it. After that decision was made last August, it was subsequently confirmed by the full council. O'Shaugnessy, a former council chairman, declared his interest in the land and abstained in votes on the matter. He said he was only one of three or four landowners whose property had been rezoned.
However, the parcels of land owned by O'Shaughnessy on the Mullingar road and Cogan on the Castlepollard road were the only ones rezoned after the local area plan had been publicly exhibited. Many local people were incensed by what they saw as public representatives abusing their position.
A public meeting had voted against the rezoning, but the councillors claim they were unaware of this. What also galled some of those at a second public meeting last November was the fact that the green light had been given for whole housing estates in an area where people had been refused planning permission for single houses.
The two very selective rezonings of land to the north and south of Delvin for suburban housing make a mockery of the local area plan's commitment to "sustainable development", with the emphasis on spreading outwards from the centre in an orderly way. The organic character of the village will be destroyed.
Yet despite its growth feeding off Dublin in opposition to strategic planning, the Department of the Environment has pledged almost 1 million to upgrade Delvin's sewerage system. This represents 40 per cent of the cost; the rest will have to be funded by developers buying up the freshly rezoned land in the area.
As for employment opportunities, Delvin has not managed to attract industry or retail development.
A cluster of small industrial units is being developed, but there's no great optimism that they will be filled. Housing is being offered as the only prospect for rapid growth. Jobs, however, will always be somewhere else.
The rezonings around Delvin, Castlepollard, Kilbeggan, Kinnegad and Rochfortbridge also threaten to undermine the National Spatial Strategy's goal of turning Athlone, Mullingar and Tullamore into a growth "gateway". This will be compounded if the same pattern is repeated in other Co Westmeath villages.
Neither Athlone (pop. 7,691 in the 2002 Census) nor Mullingar (population 8,040) is growing at anything like the rate of some of their smaller competitors, especially the villages in the east of the county. If they are to attain the critical mass needed to become a gateway, development will have to be targeted in their direction.
Strategic planning guidelines are being prepared by the Midlands Regional Authority, covering counties Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath, with next March as the deadline for their completion. But on the basis of past performance, they could end up being just as toothless as the planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area.
Reference: The Irish Times, April 17 2004
Eighty per cent of residents in Rochfortbridge's three newest housing estates are from Dublin and commute there daily, a study by Transition Year students at St Joseph's has revealed.
The study also found that the village is losing out on the economic front as most of these commuters use their own transport but do not buy their petrol in Rochfortbridge itself.
In addition many of the new residents in the 70 plus houses involved, feel the area suffers from a lack of facilities they took for granted in Dublin, everything from the likes of a health centre to a Chinese takeaway!
The 16 strong project team, led by teacher and co-ordinator Eugene Dunbar, have already submitted their findings to Westmeath County Council for consideration in the drawing up of the Town Plan for Rochfortbridge.
And in order to help "break the ice", the students organised an 'Information Evening' at the school on Tuesday evening with the aim of encouraging greater community cohesion. Representatives of various community organisations such as the GAA and Credit Union, were invited.
They were addressed by the Deputy County Manager, Mr Pat Gallagher, who described the project as "very worthwhile, feeding into the public policy issue of the new Town Development Plan for Rochfortbridge. It was very much student-led, and very good development work for them."
The students outlined the results of their findings and talked about their experiences in the Civic Link Programme, of which their project is a part, including their work with the partner school in Northern Ireland.
This year's project, which examines the issue of integrating new arrivals into the community and focusses on the housing developments of Castlelost Vale, Rahanine Manor and Stonebridge, follows on from last year's project which examined population growth in the Rochfortbridge area.
Project 'very beneficial'
According to Eugene Dunbar, the project has been very beneficial to both the students and the local community.
"The students have done superb work. The survey in particular has thrown up some interesting conclusions. Both the directory and the information evening were the students' ideas. They believe they will help new members of the community become aware of the range of facilities and services on offer in their village", he stated.
He told the Examiner that the age profile of new residents is surprisingly mixed.
"It is not just young married couples, some have teenage families and we even have a few retired people. All this has an immediate impact on schools.
"The fact that so many of them commute means they are leaving at 6.30am or 7am and are not home until the same time in the evening. So it is not so easy to integrate.
'We were also looking for areas that can be economically exploited locally. For example, very few of them are buying their petrol in Rochfortbridge - and they do a lot of travelling.
"We also asked them what they wanted to see in the village. Cheaper housing would have been the main attraction but they have said that they want things like a chemist shop or health care or even a Chinese restaurant," he remarked.
Ref: The Westmeath Examiner 19/5/01
It was announced this week (5 April 2001) that a new Hotel and mini shopping complex will be constructed in Rochfortbridge. The hotel will be a 48 bedroom hotel with a creche and shopping units attached. Also this week planning permission was granted for a new housing estate containing 88 semi detached houses.
Rochfortbridge has doubled it's population in the last year and is now up there, and has overtaken, Castlepollard, Kilbeggan and Kinnegad, as the fastest growing village in Westmeath. It will not be long until Rochfortbridge is given town status. Watch this space for further updates!
The transition from city suburb life to rural village life is an obvious step to take, but is not without it's perils and difficulties, writes Kathy Sheridan of the Irish Times. Click on the left to read the full story...
Traffic is a huge concern in Rochfortbridge, with 'homicidal commuters' racing three abreast on the winding Kinnegad road at 6.30 a.m., writes Kathy Sheridan of the Irish Times.
You could say Rochfortbridge is not well-known. In a straw poll, just one respondent successfully identified it, as in "Umm . . . the place with the lapdancing club?" Yet tens of thousands zip through it every day, barely registering the tiny, topsy-turvy village on the narrow, twisting stretch between Kinnegad and Tyrrellspass. It's the place with the horseshoe-shaped Bord na Móna estate on one side of the road and a city suburb erupting on the other. By dint of the latter, it has become one of the fastest-growing population centres in Co Westmeath, set to treble again over six years.
It's around 9 p.m. in Daly's lounge bar, and a lively crowd of Dubs seems to have dropped in for a drink on the way home. But these Dubs are already home. And with transparent honesty and no small delight, they'll tell you they are here because they sold modest homes in city suburbs such as Clondalkin and Drimnagh for "fabulous money", so that not only could they afford a fine, airy house twice the size down here, but could lash out on a car or two with the remainder. A startling number have parents and siblings who came for a look, marvelled and did the same for themselves.
At St Joseph's secondary school in the village, Eugene Dunbar's transition year did a survey and found, while 80 per cent of the new arrivals had come from Dublin, just 25 per cent had come for housing. Equal numbers were in search of a better lifestyle and safety.
Commuting is not a big topic. Frank sees few rush hours because he works shifts with the Maynooth-based ambulance service; his friend Robert carpools with three others to Hewlett-Packard in Leixlip for his 12-hour shifts; Nora (28), a single mother from west Tallaght, goes no further than Mullingar for her four-hour shifts in Dunnes Stores. There are frequent public and private city buses (though the public bus stop is at the less-populated end of the village) and services to the airport and UCD. Most people are back from work no later than 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., they say.
Childcare is not a burning issue for this crowd; most of their children are at school. Many mothers work part-time and, according to public health nurse Lillie Donoghue, there are as many stay-at-home mothers as commuters. They rhapsodise about ducks waddling the by-roads and lambs bleating, about rambles through the nearby bog and being able to see the stars at night. The pub - a focal point at weekends - is portrayed as a Cheers-type place, where everybody knows your name, the pint is cheap and already half-poured as you walk through the door, and a sing-song isn't a crime ("try that in the Longmiler . . .").
There are dissenters, not always obvious. A man sitting alone insists that he's very happy here. It just happens that between work, family and underage football coaching, he's back in Dublin seven days a week. Then someone mentions that there is a For Sale sign outside his house.
Yet the turnover of houses here is no higher than the standard 10 per cent, according to Eddie King of ERA King estate agents. Four out of six sales he has handled were families returning to Dublin, "usually because the kids couldn't stick the driving". But there is no shortage of replacements.
A house similar to the one that Darrin and Caroline Melwani paid £98,500 for in July 2000 cost Gerard and Josephine Ford 165,000 two years' later. The Melwanis and the Fords are classic first-time buyers, young parents forced out of Dublin for affordable housing, and still commuting to the capital.
Both civil servants in the city centre - the Melwanis have two children and days that start at dawn. But Caroline has a job-share which gives her every second week off, and they often stagger their starting hours: one catches the 6.45 a.m. bus and the other the 7.45 a.m., having dropped the children to Niamh Gallagher's creche in the village at 7.20 a.m. They collect them at around 5.45 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The Fords, whose jobs seem much more accessible in Leixlip, have to drop their daughter, Ciara, to the creche at 7.15 a.m. and drive the 40-60 minute journey because no buses serve that route.
Socialising is hit and miss. "By the time we get home, we're lucky to have an hour with Ciara and then get to bed on time to get up at 10 to 6," says Josephine. "But I'm just so glad to have a house to come home to . . ." Both couples say they are here to stay and cite the excellent creche (for which they fundraise), two fine paediatric units in Mullingar and Tullamore, good local schools and - "thank God" - the new multiplex in Mullingar.
Weekends are for the children and often include a trip to the play centres in Mullingar or in Johnstown (near Naas) as well as to family in Dublin.
Still, no one is blind to the downside of country village life. Water quality and sewerage are deeply deficient, and the primary schools are under pressure. Everyone mentions the teenagers - newly arrived and homegrown - who hang around corners, bored senseless.
A Tallaght child accustomed to having sports facilities, shopping malls and multiplex cinemas down the road, and local buses passing her door every 10 minutes, looks bemused. There are tales of pining older children who head back to the city every weekend. The youth club, the GAA (to which there is no daytime access due to vandalism) and overstretched scouts can only do so much. To have no car is to be trapped. There is no direct bus service to Mullingar, so children stand in Kinnegad with their thumbs out.
Sure, the village plan provides for a town park with sports facilities, shrugs a local activist, but who will have the time to maintain them?
Traffic is a huge concern; homicidal commuters racing three abreast on the narrow, winding Kinnegad road at 6.30 a.m. ("and never a cop in sight"); massive trucks speeding through the village; the anarchic situation around the village schools twice a day when 1,200 pupils, their parents and cars are milling around a tiny area is, many believe, a tragedy in waiting.
But the proposed N6 bypass seems to have faded with the boom and the talk of tolls on the Kilcock-Kinnegad motorway is infuriating. "We get pushed out here by house prices," says Gerard Ford, "and then they want to charge us for driving in to work."
The upside is the lapdancing place is closed, and there is much mutual goodwill between locals and new arrivals who believe there is something solid on which to build.
Reference: The Irish Times, April 30 2003
Click here to read the Village plan from the Westmeath County Council.
05 December 2006
A new 19km section of road was opened in Co Westmeath this afternoon.
The stretch of dual carriageway from Kinnegad to Tyrrellspass is expected to take more than 10,000 cars off the roads of Rochfortbridge and Milltownpass.
Opening the road, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said the route would not only save time and money but would also vastly improve road safety. The old N6 from Kinnegad to Tyrellspass was one of the worst stretches of road on the Galway/Dublin route.
The project was delivered on budget and 12 months ahead of schedule.
This is the first phase of a long-term project which will see dual carriageway completed from Dublin to west of Athlone by the end of next year.
Today in Westmeath, Chairman of the National Road Authority Peter Malone said a motorway from Dublin to Galway is expected to be open by the end of 2010.
At present a toll of 2.50 is charged at Enfield on the M4, a new toll will be charged west of Ballinasloe in Co Galway when the full N6 upgrade is complete.
Message from Ian O'Flynn - Parish Hall Build Committee member
As you probably know, we in the parish hall are rebuilding it at the moment and are fundraising to help complete the works.
The hall build will cost E 390,000 and we have a grant of E 300,000 so leaving us with E 90,000 to raise. The brick sponsorship costs E50 each and if people are interested, they can contact Ian at ioflynn@gmail.com or 086-1743470.
Message from Sharon Downey - Parish Hall Build Committee member
The people of Rochfortbridge successfully lobbied the County Council in supporting a restoration project for their parish hall. A grant of E 300,000 from the Development of the Environment was awarded. The job of designing the building was given to all the people of Rochfortbridge and a committee was voted in:- Fr. Stan Deegan, Ian O'Flynn, Colm Arthur, Sharon Downey, Christo Bradley, Anne McHugh, Sheila Lyster, Allison O'Flynn, Paulette O'Reilly, Rowland Bent, Paddy McCabe and Bernie Malone.
Planning permission was sought and given and a builder was appointed, unfortunately to have the hall up to standard the cost of the build is over E 400,000. That is where your help and support is needed; we the committee want your help, the people of Rochfortbridge need to raise the extra money. This is our first fundraiser and we invite you to be part of it by sponsoring a brick or two (cost of one brick E 50), If you are interested please contact any of the above committee members or leave your email address on the message board and we will contact you. All those who sponsor a brick shall have their family name displayed and wall mounted in the New Refurnished Hall. If you no longer live in Rochfortbridge and wish to sponsor a brick photos of the build in progress can be sent to you. Thank - you for your support.
