Viewpoint: Whither Kilcullen? ... it's up to us
It’s arguable that the most polarising issues of the Kilcullen area in recent times have centred around development and planning, writes Brian Byrne. These have brought people out in numbers, with strong opinions. And, going on the unfiltered medium of social media, also some with directly opposite viewpoints. Both are valid elements of freedom of speech, though on social media not always presented in a way that suggests people are open to listening to each other.
Highlight matters have been the push by Kilsaran to open a new quarry in the middle of the rural community at Ballyshannon, a proposal to establish a battery energy storage facility in a similar location at Dunnstown, the expansion of Riverside Manor in a way that paradoxically limits the possibility of families buying their own homes, and the most recent proposal — the application to build apartments and a care facility beside the Kaymed factory. There have been others, but these are what have most raised Kilcullen temperatures arguably beyond the climate change tipping point.
All have commonalities. They involved developers, existing or potential, external to Kilcullen and its hinterland. They obviously involve Kildare County Council’s planners, who make initial decisions on planning applications. And they all involve, or potentially do, An Bord Pleanala. Which last organisation, it seems, mostly appears to decide in favour of developers. Why that is so is not for this piece to explore. But it brings me to the next commonality, a major flaw in our planning process. That flaw starts with ourselves as a community. It’s that we really haven’t decided, and made clear, what kind of a community we want to be.
That’s in part because the system doesn’t make that easy. It is not usual for a village or town community to get together to decide on the specifics of how it will grow. We leave that to our local authority, via the planners, the development proposals, and our councillors. We can make inputs by observations, both to specific individual development applications and to the Local Area Plan. But we can’t make actual decisions. And the way of making submissions and observations is remote from the decision makers. It’s only a one-direction link, whether by online or the old-school registered letter.
The more controversial of the recent issues brought out people who were and are directly affected by their local proposals. The Ballyshannon Action Group, Two Mile House Says NO, and the as yet group-without-name exercised by the Kaymed field proposal. Each have brought or are bringing cogent, coherent, and relevant arguments to the situations which directly affect them. But they are doing so in individual groups, not as part of a Kilcullen which has decided for itself what it wants to be. Or how to deal with planning associated difficulties which are already part of our community life.
It’s a couple of years now since Kilcullen Community Action initiated an idea to imitate what Westport in County Mayo started 20 years ago, which resulted in a very successful reimagining of that town to suit its community’s needs. Like several other Kilcullen initiatives, production of the Kilcullen Design Statement has been delayed by the pandemic and other matters. It urgently needs to progress.
The immediate concerns facing various sections of the community of Kilcullen and its associated settlements will be decided by the success or otherwise of individual action groups and how much store the statutory bodies give to their wishes and arguments, against the lobbying and deep pockets of businesses which have no stake in the town other than to extract a profit.
But with the new Kilcullen Local Area Plan now slated for renewal — the current one expired last year — there’s an urgent need for all of those groups, and others involved in working for the continuation and betterment of quality of life in Kilcullen, to get together under one banner and set a stall for where they want the town to go.
That can’t be left to current developers and future ones poised to pressure for rezoning and waivers to suit their plans, especially those who have no personal stake or space in the community now, let alone its future.
We’re moving from summer into autumn. Covid is still a concern, but regardless there has to be an urgency in the greater Kilcullen area getting together to make its own statement on its future. Everyone should step out of Facebook and into face to face.
It doesn’t have to be one big meeting. Perhaps a series of workshops over a month or so bringing together the different groups of community — business, residents, environment, sustainability and all the other interests — to come up in the end with a broad agreement on a blueprint of Kilcullen for the next generation. Hopefully the Kilcullen Design Statement process will be reactivated in time to facilitate this.
Whatever, one thing is certain. If we don’t engage on this coherently as our total community, outside interests will, piece by piece, make us their own.
