The Newspaper with the
NEED A TAXI? “My Parents know I’ll get home safe”
BIGGEST circulation in the North County Your Quality Local Newspaper We Deliver We deliver A registered newspaper at the G.P.O.
11th February 2014 • Volume 21, Issue 05 • Leader House, North Street, Swords, Co. Dublin. • Tel: 8•400•200 • info@northcountyleader.ie
Water Problems Persist In Swords And Donabate Water problems, both a lack of it and a surplus of it, are becoming a major concern to the residents of Swords and Donabate. Water outages, as well as flooding, have become an all too regular feature around the locality in recent weeks, and there seems to be no end in sight to the problem. Residents are growing angry and frustrated, as each week seems to bring further news of a burst pipe here or a leak there, resulting in their water being turned off for many hours during the day and into the evening. Locals have little time to prepare for these water shortages, as they never know where or when the problem will strike next. They claim they are told only an hour or two before repair work is due to begin, leaving no time to prepare for what might be many hours without water. Only days after the Council spent over a week repairing a huge leak on the Forrest Road in Swords (which saw the road closed for the entirety of that time, and numerous delays before it was completed), the
By Jennifer McShane County Leader was informed of another major leak which needed fixing. Once again, on Thursday last, the water was turned off for a period of almost four hours, affecting the areas of Lissenhall in Swords, Hearse Road, Turvey and Corduff, as well as all of Donabate and Portrane. Residents in these areas are confused and angry at the constant disruption to this vital service. And indeed, where the lack of water is causing concern to some, other exasperated residents are frustrated by too much water. In the Nurseries estate, off the Forest Road in Swords. Residents there have been plagued with regular flooding in the area in both winter and summer, due to the three shores, which channel all of the rainwater in the estate, being backed up and blocked. The County Leader went to investigate this incident further, and one concerned resident Esmond Reilly, told us more about the
Not Enough Demand For Malahide Shuttle Members of the Malahide Shuttle Group and Malahide Community Forum are “deeply disappointed” that the recently launched Malahide Shuttle Service is no longer running. The service, which took four years of persistent negotiation and numerous applications to the National Transport Authority to get approved, had to be stopped after only a couple of months in service, as not enough people were using it. Michael Gill of the Malahide Community Forum said that all involved were disappointed at the lacklustre response, as a great deal of market research had been done prior to the launch of the service. “During the eight weeks up to Christmas that the
problem. “We were told at one point by the Council that it was due to the old drainage system being unable to handle the volume of water, leading to the system backing up and our road flooding and that this would improve when works were done. The Forrest Road has been dug up over and over again, and still the problem persists,” he said Now, four years on and every time it rains to any degree, the road floods, causing a hazard to traffic in the estate and a dangerous threat to the children there. Also the unfortunate homeowners, who live in the area where the flooding occurs, are often unable to enter or exit our homes without
shuttle ran, an average of only six people used it each day. This number was nothing like enough to justify the service in commercial terms, so as a result of this, the shuttle is no more,” he told the County Leader. “Despite the encouragement we got from market surveys and many personal interviews, it seems that Malahide commuters prefer to use their own transport to the station. We were really surprised, because during our extensive research, we felt that there was a genuine need for the service,” he said. “So we can’t imagine why, when all was said and done, that there was such a poor take up.” Gill also said that he wanted to stress to local residents that if any new services in their town were to stay active, the participation in using them was crucial to their success. “At the end of the day, if people don’t use a service it won’t stay running,” he concluded.
wellingtons, or have to walk halfway up the estate before they can cross the road. “The fact that our homes have not been completely flooded is only due to the good fortune that our driveways are built on an upward slope. We need something done before there is property damage, or worse still, an injury to a child - of which there are many in the estate,” he said, worriedly. Local councillor, Darragh Butler (FF), is all too aware of this ongoing problem, and told the County Leader that he empathises with the frustration of the residents. “One of the issues that residents bring up all the time is the annoyance of seeing the same faults happening, over and over again. If they see something being fixed, they want to know that there is a permanent fixture for it, and that hasn’t been the case, particularly where the Forrest Road in Swords is concerned,” he said. “It’s obvious that a lot of work needs to be done, as Swords has had a lot of bad luck in in the last number of weeks with regards to this water issue,” he concluded. While it’s uncertain how long we can expect to see these water problems continue, what is certain is that the residents won’t stand for them much longer.
Planning For Great Success
Downey Planning have taken up the option of sponsoring the Planning Section on North County Leader's website, northcountyleader.ie and also in the newspaper. Managing Director of Downey Planning, John Downey is pictured here with Sean Fitzmaurice, North County Leader's Director of IT. Turn to page 10 to see how you can grow your business with northcountyleader.ie.