Stalled Martin Savage Park astroturf proposal can proceed, council chief says

Dublin City Council is to press ahead with plans to redevelop sports facilities at Martin Savage Park in Cabra, councillors learnt at Monday’s monthly council meeting. 

The plans for a new astroturf pitch, which is to be shared by the local GAA and soccer clubs, stalled last year amid concerns about brent geese that graze in the park in winter. 

About 2,000 people had submitted to a public consultation process, as part of the planning process for council projects known as Part 8, and the project appeared to be moving ahead. 

But then the Department of Housing intervened. If grasslands across Dublin were converted to astroturf, geese might run out of spots to graze on, wrote David O’Connor, an executive officer in the Department of Housing, in February 2024.

Furthermore, Martin Savage Park was among the top 20 inland sites favoured by brent geese in the Dublin area he wrote. He recommended that a Natura Impact Statement (NIS) be drawn up considering this, before the project proceeded.

At Monday’s monthly council meeting, Richard Shakespeare, the council’s CEO, said that “the planned works at the park may proceed without prejudice”.

Sinn Féin Councillor Seamas McGrattan had asked for an update, as well as what studies were done, and when the planning application for the sports facilities could go ahead.  

Proceeding with the project means the council has to start the Part 8 planning process again, because it was interrupted last time, said Feljin Jose, a Green Party councillor, on Thursday. 

The council’s proposals are for an all-weather pitch, a new playground, and floodlights on another pitch, among other changes. 

At the moment, the park has multiple grass pitches but these are not playable in winter as the ground is too wet. 

Local councillors have backed the proposal. “We don’t have enough sports facilities for kids,” said Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll, last year. “I’m really passionate about young girls playing sports.”

The plans also include seating to make the park more accessible for older people, she said. 

The concern raised by the department, and environmentalists, was about the wider implications of converting real grass fields to astroturfs.

“If you are talking about converting one pitch, it’s no big deal,” said Helen Boland, the Dublin Bay birds project manager with Birdwatch Ireland in March 2024. “But it’s the cumulative effect that is becoming a concern.”

But Shakespeare said that’s not a worry from this case. 

Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity Christopher O’Sullivan, a Fianna Fáil TD, has said that the development at Martin Savage Park wouldn’t impact the light-bellied brent goose population in the Dublin region, said Shakespeare. 

Further surveys should be carried out this winter, and the council plans to meet local sports clubs soon to discuss the redevelopment of the sports facilities, said Shakespeare. 

Dublin’s brent geese started to move and graze inland sometime in the early 1970s, Stuart Bearhop, a professor of animal ecology at the University of Exeter, has said.

Ideally, the geese would prefer to stay at sea and live on marine algae, says Bearhop. But after a stretch of good years, their numbers grew so large each winter that they’d run out of that food, he says.

“There is a lot of marine algae in Dublin Bay but not enough to support the population as it now stands,” Bearhop says. “As that runs out, they start to come onto the football pitches.”

Brent geese are protected as part of the Dublin Bay Special Conservation Area, so their decision to move inland can affect development plans for homes and all-weather pitches and all manner of things – if the building risks removing their new feeding grounds.

In January, Malcolm Noonan, Minister of State in the Department of Housing, said that Dublin local authorities were working on a strategic plan to look together at the future management of areas used by brent geese, and setting conservation targets. 

“Balancing the needs of communities with international nature conservation obligations would be at the heart of this work,” he said.