Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to address this important issue. I thank all our colleagues who engaged with me over the months about this site and this development plan, including many councillors who have engaged through the system. I also thank the residents, many hundreds of whom have emailed me personally or taken time to make submissions to the process. That is part of it. Everyone's submission was listened to, as was the council. I have visited the site and spent time in the area, as well as at Castletown House, to look at the views and see how this would affect the overall area. I take this part of my job very seriously.

I have a statutory function under the planning code whereby I monitor statutory plans to ensure that they are consistent with established national planning policies and comply with the relevant legislative requirements. Where this does not happen, the power to issue section 31 directions provides a safeguarding mechanism and is only used in a limited number of cases, relative to some 300 statutory development plans and local area plans across the State. In the case of Celbridge, I used those powers on Friday, 10 November 2017. The simple fact of the matter is that Celbridge is a strategically located town within that fast growing cluster of towns including Maynooth and Leixlip, and is earmarked to grow by about 10,000 people over the next five to ten years. We have to ask if we want Celbridge and towns like it just to be dormitory towns, full of commuters but with no commercial heart. Celbridge has a very weak, some say declining, but historic town centre. All I am trying to do is to uphold national policy in ensuring that the one small area it can grow into is not lost forever. If I did not do my job and allowed local planning policies to make these kinds of decisions, in the future those local communities would regret the situation they would find themselves in having to provide the shops and services they need at the edges of their towns and, worse than that, maybe not in those towns at all but in neighbouring towns. It will be important to get the balance right on the development of the centre of Celbridge. We will need to respect its historic urban and landscape character. I believe we would benefit from really well designed new housing right in the centre, to give new life to it and create new footfall for its struggling main street, the vitality of which should be the key focus. I emphasise that this is also to support that main centre. I have been on that street and many businesses there have seen a decline in business over the years because people cannot access it. This plan would put some housing right beside it and I support that.

There will also be a new public park and riverside amenity, which will be a major attractor for the town centre. We need to get working on putting this into practice. The land that was previously zoned a number of years ago has much less housing. There is also a portion of land that has been handed over which was owned by the local authority since 2012, which can be developed as a top-class amenity and park and protect the character of the landscape and the house and lands there. Great efforts have been made to do this right. I have seen previous planning applications and footage of what could have happened and the scale that could have happened. We are not allowing for that or envisaging that here at all. I look forward to working with Kildare County Council and others to make this vision happen and deliver it properly.

The site offers an ideal opportunity to revitalise and regenerate the core of Celbridge for new and existing residents alike and to integrate sensitively with the recognised assets of the River Liffey, Castletown demesne and the historic main street. The alternative would be the creation of more poor quality, car-based shopping and commercial developments that occupy peripheral locations and undermine the distinctive character and attraction of an important town like Celbridge. My Department is ready to work with Kildare County Council to ensure that those lands to the south of the main street at Donaghcumper are developed in a manner and at a pace that will protect the commercial vitality of the town centre, the heritage value of the adjacent Castletown demesne and will enable the creation of a new riverside public amenity as set out in the local area plan.

I have read all the submissions myself. We have engaged with the OPW, which owns the house in question, since everyone has been asking that. This is a zoning matter. It is not a matter of planning permission and anyone who wants to develop that has to bring forward plans that are sustainable, pass all the tests and that will address all the concerns of the residents in Celbridge.

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