Residents’ fury with Greenhills Road changes

admin January 22, 2016 10:38 am

By Laura Lyne

RESIDENTS in the Birchview estate have raised their concerns with proposals for the re-alignment of the Greenhills Road at Kilnamanagh, following a report in The Echo last week that plans for the re-alignment have been put back on the agenda by South Dublin County Council.

The plans are a part of the Greenhills Road re-alignment scheme, which has been earmarked for funding as part of the 2016-2018 Capital Programme.

Resident Jennifer Clarke, whose home on Birchview Avenue is located directly beside the greenspace, told The Echo that her primary concern is the privacy of her house for her young family.

She said: “We’d be living next door to a main road. The junction with Tymon would be located directly behind the house too; we’d be surrounded at every angle.

“It would definitely need a wall, but then we’d be stuck looking out at a wall instead of traffic right beside our house.

“Losing the greenspace for the kids would also be terrible, I love the open space we have here right now.”

The re-alignment scheme, which is in four phases, will see an upgrade to the junction between Ballymount Road Lower and Ballymount Avenue, the reconfiguration of the Greenhills and Calmount Roads near Tymon Park/Greenpark, the extension of Limekiln Road to the Greenhills Road and the re-alignment of the Greenhills Road between Parkview and Birchview in Kilnamanagh.

Another resident, Shane O’Leary, told The Echo that there has been a lot of “misinformation” being made available about the proposal.

He said: “There’s definitely been a lot of misinformation and the information available has been very mixed. This has been going on for so long, it’s been going ahead for the 32 years my family has been here.

“In recent years it seems that it has been given the green light and then given the green light again and I just don’t know what they’re going to achieve by it. It’s more money going to waste.”

The plans for the re-alignment of the Greenhills Road between Parkview and Birchview were put to Part 8 public consultation in 2005, before plans were shelved due to a lack of funding following the economic downturn.

The Birchview re-alignment is expected to be the fourth phase of the re-alignment scheme.
Resident Paul Mullen said that he, along with his neighbours on Birchview Avenue, have a “lot of concerns” about the proposal.

He said: “The proximity of the road to the houses, privacy, the noise of the traffic would all be concerns to us.
“When the initial plans came out for the re-alignment back in the 70s, the bungalows at Parkview weren’t there and that land would have been used for the road.

“We would hope that the least we would get is a screen wall with no entrances or exits to the estate, and the most we would hope is that the plans do not go ahead at all.”