[Update: We cannot alter the template on this page because several hundred people have already signed up to it as a group submission, but, if you are making an individual submission, you will find further concerns on our And There’s More page that we are still discovering… Feel free to copy and paste any of these also that you support into your own submission.]
Shankill Property Investments, aka Ballymore, have submitted a new application (Phase 2 of their overall MasterPlan) to Wicklow County Council, this time to build on the lowlands – floodplain – of the former Bray Golf Club lands. We have until midnight on Sunday, 27th April, to make submissions online regarding our concerns about this proposed development: anybody who wishes to deliver their submissions by post, or by hand, has until 5pm the following day, Monday, 28th April.
All submissions must provide the name and address of the person making it, and the reference number of Ballymore’s application. That ref. no. is 2560207. Finally, a fee of 20 euro per submission must accompany your document, whether online or a physical copy. Please remember that your fee must be in before your submission is valid! Therefore, if you intend to make your submission by email to plandev@wicklowcoco.ie, you must either call in to Wicklow County Council with your fee, or phone them at 0404.20100, with your debit or credit card details, on or before Friday, 25th, during office hours: otherwise you will invalidate an email submission made on Saturday or Sunday, as you will not be able to make payment.
We hope that as many people as possible will make an individual submission, but, if you cannot afford 20 euro (and we understand that many people cannot), we would be grateful if you would read the template below, which is a copy of our group submission, and then, if you agree with our arguments, sign our group submission (we will pay the 20 euro for this submission) by going to https://www.change.org/p/save-our-floodplain-our-swans-and-our-sanity and adding your signature.
For those of you who can afford 20 euro, please feel free to copy and paste into your own submission whatever arguments you agree with from the group submission below. Just remember to substitute ‘I’ for ‘We’ in the opening paragraph, and put your own name and address at the end. And don’t leave out the reference number 2560207! Please note also that only an email address is given at the end of this submission to protect data: a full postal address will be given before we submit it to Wicklow Co. Co. Make sure you do the same! So, here goes:-
Submission to Wicklow County Council Planning Department re Planning Application Ref. 2560207
by Shankill Property Investments to build on the lowlands of the former Bray Golf Club lands:
We wish to make the following submission regarding the above application:
Flood Risk:
Shankill Property Investments claim in their ‘Application Form: Part A’ that this site has never flooded. There is substantial evidence in the RTE archives (Charlie Bird report); alluvial soil maps; OPW/CFRAM maps; and living memory that all of Flood Zone A as described in Bray’s Development Plans, as well as the applicant’s own documentation, has been flooded consistently. Approximately half of Flood Zone A is located within this application.
The applicant further suggests on p16 of their Flood Risk Assessment (FRA) that this site has experienced “no recent flooding since the completion of the flood defence scheme.” Flood defences failed at this precise location in 2015 and 2016: see photographs at the end of this submission.
The Sequential Approach demanded for building on floodplains is based on the avoidance of building on land at a higher risk flooding, if land at a lower risk is available. This approach, outlined in the mandatory Flood Risk Management Guidelines, is clearly being manipulated by phasing applications on the former golf club lands. By dividing their applications for development into three separate phases, starting with the highest ground, Shankill Property Investments have already reduced the available land at a lower risk of flooding on which to build. As their Phase 1 applications cover all of the high ground (Flood Zone C), only Flood Zones A and B now remain.
Most of the development in this Phase 2 is located on Flood Zone B, the middle category of flood risk. This includes a 150 bed hotel (Block I) with associated well-being centre and pool, wedding/function venue, rooftop restaurant, and 1retail unit; a private medical centre, childcare facility, and 1 retail unit (Block H), as well as 341 housing units, according to ‘Application Form A’.
Despite the applicant’s claim on p43 of their FRA that: “The low-lying areas at highest risk of flooding are dedicated to the linear park / amenity open space uses, with [only] the Block G retail units also proposed in an area at high risk of flooding”, we would contend that the Block E enclave is also at least partially located in Flood Zone A – as demonstrated in their Figure 5.2 on the same page: see screen shot attached at the end of this submission.
This enclave consists of the 15 storey apartment Block E, plus a pub, 3 commercial units (2 of which are retail), and 109 ‘premium residential units’ on what was previously permitted as a Coastal Garden, ideal for a floodplain. This public open space has now been reduced to 0.35ha, according to the applicant’s calculations on p28 of their Architectural Design Statement, Part 2a (ADS: 2a).
In this Phase 2 application, Shankill Property Investments have then divided Flood Zone A, the highest category of risk, into approximately two parts. They propose to locate a public park measuring just under 1.6ha within the part of Flood Zone A included in this application, leaving the remaining Flood Zone A area, beside the flood defence wall, without any such commitment.
A further 0.25ha of space around Block G, and the remainder of a much reduced Coastal Garden reaches the total of 2.2ha claimed as public open space in this application: however, the Coastal Garden was already included in their public open space calculations for Phase 1 (p28 of ADS: 2a).
In effect, Shankill Property Investments are attempting to replace a 3.5ha Flood Zone A, as per Town Planners Brady Shipman Martin’s 1999 Area Action Plan for the former Bray Golf Club lands, with a 1.6ha Central Park, and a further 0.6ha scattered around the application site.
This calculated division of Flood Zone A into two applications, like the previous application to build on Flood Zone C first, has the effect of leaving only the remainder of this zone for Phase 3.
According to p5 of their ADS: 1: “Phase 3, located adjacent to the River Dargle, is expected to accommodate approximately 362 residential units above a podium, including approximately 14,000sqm of retail and other uses. The building heights in Phase 3 will range from 6-9 storeys.” P39 of the FRA adds that it will: “include 6 apartment blocks built on a podium. The ground floor beneath the podium is proposed to be lowered to 1.5m AOD and will serve as a carpark, raising the higher vulnerability residences off the ground and above the design flood protection level.”
All of Phase 3 will have to be built on the remainder of Flood Zone A, next to the flood defence wall – with the public park obligation already fulfilled – if this Phase 2 proposal is allowed to go ahead in its present form – because there will be no other available land left on this site on which to build the remainder of Wicklow County Council’s target of 1,000 housing units on the old golf links.
We would submit that, if it is really necessary – and safe – to build those 362 housing units (classed as Highly Vulnerable development by the Flood Risk Management Guidelines) on the former golf club lands, then they should at least be assigned in this application to its Flood Zone B, as per the Sequential Approach, instead of the numerous commercial entities listed above. Specifically, we submit that it is unsafe to permit a childcare facility on either a Flood Zone A or B, particularly as the applicant already has permission for one on the safer Flood Zone C.
Shankill Property Investments clearly recognise the dangers inherent in putting residential development on a Flood Zone A, as the FRA includes: “Emergency access and egress plans …. to evacuate to higher ground via access roads if needed” (p37); a proposal to raise “residential buildings and key access roads … above the flood protection level of 3.5m AOD” (p43); “Demountable barriers and a water exclusion design strategy up to the flood protection level of 3.5m AOD” in some locations (p44); ‘resilience measures’, such as non-return valves, lifts fitted with a sump to allow for pumping of flood water, and raised electrical and gas fittings (p46); and a Flood Emergency Response Plan “in the event of a significant flooding or exceedance event ….for the building users and tenants within the site that are set below the flood protection level of 3.5m AOD” (p46). In addition, p28 advises that: “An external pedestrian escape to higher ground should be provided for the apartment blocks (part of the future Phase 3 of the development)”.
In addition, while “Residents within the duplex and ‘own-door’ units north of the park and above the flood protection level of 3.5m AOD” are reassured that they “would not be impacted upon by a 0.5% AEP tidal event, which is the dominant design flood level in this area”, they are also told that “in case of an emergency” they would still be “able to leave the site by moving northwards towards Harbour Road.” [p47]
This underlines the fact that the only safe place to build on a floodplain is the high ground. “The site slopes from the northwest to the River Dargle in the southeast. The levels range from 7.2m AOD on the northern boundary to 1.47m AOD on the southeast boundary”. [p7] Phase 3 is proposed for the low southern boundary.
The applicant’s Flood Emergency Response Plan “has been informed by the Bray Flood Emergency Plan and details triggers for activation including the receipt of a timely flood warning, a staged response and sets out the management and operational roles and responsibilities.” [p46] Bray’s Flood Emergency Plan, to be renewed annually, is dated 29th September, 2008.
Prematurity: 5.26 of Chapter 5 of the Flood Risk Guidelines states that, when a planning decision is required “where a review of a development plan is imminent”, “a precautionary approach should be applied, and either the application should be refused on grounds of prematurity …. or a flood risk assessment should be undertaken, and the Justification Test applied following advice in paragraphs below.”
The following advice states that major proposals for development in areas of flood risk “should be considered as though the land was not zoned for development” and “Where the information is not sufficient to fully assess the issues involved, the development should not be approved on the basis of flood risk and / or on the grounds of prematurity prior to addressing flood risk as part of the normal review of the development plan for the area.”
As our 2025 Local Area Plan is imminent, and the Justification Test within Bray’s Development Plan is flawed (as follows), we submit that this development should be refused on the basis of both flood risk and prematurity, allowing our councillors to review the contradictions in both Land Use and Flood Zones contained in our present and proposed LAPs.
In Bray’s present LAP and Wicklow County Council’s proposal for a public transport bridge, the same land is identified in the former as Flood Zones A and B, and in the latter as a Flood Zone C.
In Bray’s 2011 Development Plan, Flood Zone A shows precisely the area of the former Bray Golf club lands that has verifiably flooded in all major floods in the past: yet it was zoned for Land Use as Town Centre in violation of the Flood Risk Management Guidelines, which came into law in 2009.
In Bray’s (present) 2018 LAP the Land Use zoning was reduced to Mixed Use for the entire site – but Flood Zones A and B were extended up onto the high ground, thus greatly extending the area at flood risk following the installation of 47m euro flood defences along the Dargle River. The result was to ‘allow’ the entire site to ‘pass’ the mandatory Justification Test for building on floodplains.
While the proposed flood zoning for the upcoming 2025 LAP for Bray – as per the pre-consultation portal – showed a slight decrease in Flood Zone B, Flood Zone A has still been extended far beyond the accurate map shown in the 2011 Plan, while declared as Flood Zone C in the ‘bridge proposal’.
We submit that the 2011 Flood Zone A is the only accurate mapping of flood risk on these lands, as it is the only area which has consistently, verifiably flooded; that the Justification Test within Bray’s Development Plan is flawed; and that the Development Management section of the Flood Risk Management Guidelines again require that any decision on this planning application would be premature before Bray’s 2025 Local Area Plan is adopted.
Our Swans:
According to Section 2d (p16) of their Architectural Design Statement (ADS), the applicant proposes to locate the 15 storey apartment Block E, at the south-eastern junction of their site, nearest to the river and the railway track. Part of their design strategy, they say, is to locate their tallest buildings close to the railway to optimise sea views. Phase 3 plans include six apartment blocks built on a podium, alongside the flood defence wall. Building heights here will range from 6-9 storeys. The Swan Sanctuary in Bray Harbour is “approximately 100 meters from the development site”. They acknowledge “a potential risk of bird collisions, especially for species like swans that struggle with flight”, in particular Block E, which “due to its height, is considered the highest risk for bird collisions”.
Wicklow County Council is already proposing to build a suspension bridge alongside this section of the site, effectively maximizing the risk to swans whose lack of forward vision during flight will subject them to optimum danger of horrific injury and death by the twin hazards of tall buildings and suspension bridge infrastructure. The applicant proposes that “best practice has been used …. to reduce the risks of collision.”
We submit that ‘best practice’ is to refuse permission for tall buildings close to the railway line and river, to prevent our wild birds of all descriptions, but especially our Mute Swans, from even further danger of appalling injury or death.
Traffic/Road Safety:
Bray’s traffic is already in chaos, and that is dangerous, particularly for VRUs. This new application includes 341 housing units; 150 bed hotel; a wellness centre; pool, pub, wedding venue; a childcare facility; a private medical clinic; and 7 retail centres. Only 532 car parking spaces will be provided.
The applicant has announced an intention to apply for a further 362 housing units, plus “additional retail space”, and 11,000sqm of commercial floor space” in Phase 3 – in addition to the buildings already developed on the high ground, and 2 apartment blocks under challenge in the High Court.
It is also proposed to close vehicle access to the Sea Gardens’ site from the junction between Castle Street and Ravenswell Road, instead opening a new junction at Sunnybank through the old Ravenswell Convent avenue. At the same time, a plan to close the Herbert Road junction with the N11 seems to be getting pushed through, despite huge scale opposition by the people of Bray.
One of the reasons behind the closure of the Castle Street/Ravenswell Road junction makes eminent sense. The road running parallel to Castle Street on the applicant’s site rises quickly to the north, thus creating a blockage on the flood path from Dwyer Park onto the golf club lands. However, this road could simply be realigned to allow it to climb at a gentler gradient, freeing the flood path.
We submit that a development of this scale requires a considered and cohesive traffic management plan before planning permission is granted. Otherwise, the additional burden on our roads will lead to traffic gridlock, particularly if a major artery into our town at the Herbert Road is closed, and another major artery from the Wilton roundabout is choked almost immediately at Sunnybank, where the only relief road is the very narrow Upper Dargle Road – impossible to widen because of its topography.
Summary:
We submit that, as our 2025 Local Area Plan is imminent and the Justification Test within Bray’s Development Plan is flawed, this development should be refused on the basis of both flood risk and prematurity, allowing our councillors to review the contradictions in both Land Use and Flood Zones contained in our present and proposed LAPs before the 2025 LAP is adopted. We also submit that this planning application should be re-submitted, following the LAP, with the highly vulnerable residential units taking up the higher ground of Flood Zone B as per the Sequential Approach; no development allowed on the 3.5ha Flood Zone A, which should be zoned for Land Use as Open Space according to planning law; and with high rise buildings kept away from the railway track and river to protect our swan colony. Finally, we submit that a development of this scale requires a considered and cohesive traffic management plan before planning permission is granted.
Signed: Avril Power, Hon. Sec., SaveBray
savebray2021@gmail.com
Attachments:
