Independent Councillor John Lyons says he wants to make sure that its local residents, not council officials, who decide how the community gain fund is spent.
“I’ve never heard anything about a community gain fund,” said Caroline Murphy, standing not far from the site of the big Oscar Traynor Woods housing development in Coolock on Thursday.
Other local residents said the same, as they passed.
Maybe, that’s because there’s been little progress on consultation on how this pot of €7 million for the neighbourhood should be used, according to independent Councillor John Lyons.
A community gain fund for residents living near the Oscar Traynor Woods development is one part of the deal to redevelop the council site struck by the council with developer Glenveagh in November 2021.
The plan for the council land is for 853 homes, a mix of social, affordable purchase, and cost-rental.
Part of it also involves developer Glenveagh paying €14 million to Dublin City Council, half of which councillors agreed should be allocated for a community gain fund for capital projects in the area, says Lyons.
After construction began in 2023, that money was transferred to the council, he says.
Lyons and his council colleagues assumed things would be a lot further along with the community gain fund by now, he says. “We’re still literally nowhere.”
At a meeting of the council’s North Central Area Committee in November 2023, Lyons had asked about the delivery of an all-weather football pitch in Coolock.
The response from a council official outlined some of the sports facilities it had been rolling out in the shorter term.
Then, it also said the local area office was organising a public consultation of residents living around the Oscar Traynor site to find out what more facilities the residents wanted.
A steering committee would be formed to work out how the community gain fund would be used to best benefit the community, the council said.
Two years on and nothing has moved forward, Lyons said by phone, last month.
He presented a motion at a meeting of the North Central Area Committee last month too, calling on the council to urgently commence the consultation process with locals on how the money should be spent – as previously promised.
The first step should be to convene a meeting between council officials, local councillors and residents from Kilmore West, Lorcan Estate, Woodlawn and Aulden Grange, he said.
“We need to survey the communities and to get a sense of what is it that they would like – and that would be prepared and presented in a report,” Lyons says.
“And then from that point on, we could get into the actual detail of how that money was spent and what would be the best use is,” he says.
Murphy, the resident who was standing near the site on Thursday, said she would like to see more sports facilities. Tennis courts, in fact.
“Just no more football, I’ve had enough of that,” she said through a chuckle. More amenities for children in the area are needed too, she said.
The Oscar Traynor Road needs to be widened, says Karl Kennedy, as a full lane has recently been made a 24-hour bus lane. “It’s mayhem at rush hour as it is. What’s it going to be like with another 800 plus homes just over that wall?”
More sporting facilities for the children in the area would be good too, Kennedy says.
Michael Walsh, who lives across the road from the site, says “I’d pay the council the €7 million myself if someone would come and prune the trees over my house.”
He points to giant trees in a small plot next door to his home. “They’re totally blocking my solar panels, and the sap has my cars and driveway wrecked,” he says.
He says he is even willing to offer the telephone pole in his front garden for advertising to any councillor who will sort the pruning for him.
Walsh also says the young people of the area need more things to do. He sees many of them just pottering about on scooters, looking bored.
Improved security cameras would be good too, to combat robberies and car break-ins, he says. “I know that mightn’t be a popular idea though.”
Traffic calming measures on the Old Coolock Lane are also on Walsh’s wish list.
Mornings, cars race up the narrow track on their way to work, with little consideration for the children in the area, he says. “Someone will get badly hurt.”
The official response from the council executive to Lyons’ motion last month said that the council envisages that the community gain fund will “provide a significant legacy project, rather than being used to meet short-term requirements”.
Lyons says he doesn’t know why they are now speaking about a project, singular as opposed to projects, plural.
It seems the council have in mind what the money will be used for, he says. But that’s not what was discussed and presented to councillors in the past.
“It’s a community gain fund, not a DCC gain fund,” he says.
Having lived beside construction sites before, he says he understands the level of disruption from air and noise pollution.
The new community of Oscar Traynor Woods will have various facilities on site, he says, but it’s important that the surrounding communities can have some benefits from extra facilities too.
“Whatever it is that they actually want. That’s not for us to be prescribing,” says Lyons
The process is far behind where it should be right now in terms of community engagement, he says, with no terms of reference established yet.
After the motion was passed in June’s meeting, council officials agreed to convene a meeting to finally discuss the terms of reference.
But, “as public reps, we need to put the pressure on because we have to make up for lost time”, said Lyons.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
