Council’s ‘super depot’ planned for Marrowbone Lane

Dublin City Council has voted to rezone a site on Marrowbone Lane for the development of roughly 100 housing units and a council depot – but several councillors in the area have contested the plans.

Owen Keegan, chief executive of Dublin City Council, plans to concentrate the city’s 32 council depots into two super-depots; one located in Ballymun and one on Marrowbone Lane located in the Liberties.

The plans also provide space for 100 housing units and two all weather sports pitches on the land.

The site on which the proposed rezoning is to happen already houses a Dublin City Council depot. According to a document released by Dublin City Council, some of the issues raised in relation to the plans included the idea that Marrowbone Lane is the wrong location for to have a council depot.

Kieran Rose, local resident and former senior planner at Dublin City Council is not supportive of the plan. He said, “I think a depot here adjoining the digital hub with surface parking for trucks etc is not the best use of central city land.”

The council document lays out that “noise from trucks, traffic congestion and light glare”, are all issues associated with having the depot at the Marrowbone Lane location and says that it should be relocated to a less sensitive area as it will be a super depot, which would be operating 24/7.

Rose said, “There is a huge lack of open space in the Liberties as set out in the city council greening the Liberties strategy.”

According to Dublin City Council, the Liberties Greening Strategy “is a strategy that seeks to improve the recreational and amenity resource for the community, while focusing specifically on projects that have a realistic chance of being implemented in the medium term.”

The strategy sets out to develop a set of urban parks, including Bridgefoot Community Garden.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), all cities should have nine metre squared green spaces for every person but Dublin’s Liberties have less than one metre squared per person.

Locals believe that a sports pitch on the site would be of great use to the young people of the area. Following the vote by Dublin City Council, two smaller all weather pitches are planned on the land.

Local sporting clubs and teams currently have no access to pitches in the locality and so are forced to travel to the surrounding areas to use their facilities. The placement of a sports pitch on the land at Marrowbone Lane would give clubs vital facilities.

“The site can accommodate both housing and significant open space as [the] Douglas Carson scheme shows,” said Rose.

The site of nearly five acres has the potential to transform the area and give the community the facilities they desperately need.