Focus on developers to protect and retain hedgerows and trees

Members of South Dublin County Council have agreed on the importance of ensuring the council protects biodiversity during all development planning.

With focus placed on the increased construction and development around South Dublin, councillors have emphasised the need for developers to retain hedgerows and trees.

The SDCC’s County Development Plan contains several important policies and objectives that are pivotal to the protection of plants and animals.

The policies include “the protection and retention of existing trees, hedgerows and woodlands of biodiversity, carbon sequestration, landscape or amenity value.”

The protection of “hedgerows as wildlife habitats, ecological corridors and historic field boundaries and the safeguarding of rural character, including the maintenance of intact hedgerows and trees above the 120-metre contour line.”

Councillor Francis Timmons raised the issue at this month’s SDCC’s meeting which was welcomed by other councillors.

“The reality is that the policies are not protecting the hedgerows, examples are, the hedgerow on Aylmer Road, the Ballynakelly Norman hedgerows that dated back generations that are now destroyed.”

The Aylmer Road hedgerow in Newcastle was removed earlier this month during ongoing development despite there being plans to prevent its removal.

Cllr Timmons urged the council to take a community-based approach to climate and biodiversity matters.

He told The Echo that councillors should ensure community concerns are heard and issues such as hedgerow and tree felling are nipped in the bud during new development plans.

“What we can control is what happens at our own doorstep and in our own communities and we have a say in that. This is not about being anti-housing or anti-industry.”

“Biodiversity itself is not just about planting a few flowers, it’s important for our very existence.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.