Professional Documents
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The second issue is: what happens to the site during this ve year-plus period?
We!ve already had Sisk here for seven years.
At every turn, they have refused and resisted every proposal every reasonable proposal
for a comprehensive approach to remedying the desolate and ugly character of the site
while the community waits for them to get their nger out.
They resisted taking down the hoardings that gave GUBOH its name and raison d!etre
They resisted opening the south harbour to the public until the pressure from GUBOH
became too much for them
They resisted any measure to put some lipstick on their ugly gorilla to help the
businesses whose trade was stricken due to the repulsiveness of the site and the
disgraceful state of the last stretch of the Cliff Walk from Bray
They refused to continue discussions with Stephen Donnelly TD and Cllr Tom Fortune
last December, when their tame councillors sabotaged efforts to get everyone around a
table under the auspices of the old Town Council discussions which might have led to
progress acceptable to the community and a solution in place for this summer, now
halfway through
And they refused to spend the negligible sum of "300,000 to implement the Greystones
Harbour Community Plan a drop in the bucket when set against the let-off of "30
million in public money given to them by NAMA and the "17 million worth of land
removed from the proposed public park and handed to them for nothing by Wicklow
County Council
It is high time that the Municipal Council says STOP to all this!
It is high time that the Municipal Council says to Sisk:
You have one opportunity to mend your fences with the Greystones community.
Sit down with this council, with the community groups having an interest in the harbour,
with the sponsors of the Community Plan, and make a deal to implement it.
Let!s be clear once again because some of the usual suspects have been stirring up
the mud and pretending that the Community Plan would obstruct completion of the project.
The Community Plan is not set in stone. Much of it is negotiable.
More to the point, it is exible. Every measure in it can be coordinated with any possible
phasing of the remaining build-out.
The key words are phasing and coordination, and all that is needed for these is for Sisk to
give up its dog-in-the-manger attitude, take down the two ngers it has been holding up to
us for seven years now, and engage in a constructive manner to get a solution which will
satisfy its construction requirements and at the same time satisfy the needs of the
community.
One thing is sure. If Sisk do not do this, there will be further delay and this entire project
will stretch out to the early 2020s if it is ever completed at all.
Why?
Because what is contained in Sisk!s new construction schedule, however fanciful its start
date, is not entirely covered by existing planning approval.
That means further planning applications to WCC. Inevitably, these will be objected to and
appealed to Bord Pleanala with a minimum further delay of two years.
Given the feelings in the community against Sisk and its behaviour, these objections will
be many.
Changes may, and almost certainly will, require a new Environmental Impact Assessment,
under rules somewhat different from when the last was carried out, with further possibility
for objection and delay.