Fingal County Council's experience with the Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) programme has been problematic. An Bord Pleanála is due to decide on appeals against the Council's SDZ development scheme some time this month, but it is unclear whether this hurdle will actually be passed before the end of the month.

A number of difficulties have dogged its 82-hectare SDZ scheme at Castaheany/Hansfield, but the council's director of services for planning and economic development, Mr David O'Connor, is certain that had the old planning schemes been used, construction would already be underway.

"There is no question about it. If we had done a normal approval using the local area plan, that would have gone through the system," he said. "I have no doubt there would be construction on site by now and houses being lived in. It is the complete opposite of what was intended," he added, referring to the notion that SDZs were expected to fast track housing construction.

"We didn't request this SDZ, we were asked if there were areas that would be appropriate," he says. "It hasn't delivered for us, although in principle it is a good system."

The single biggest problem for Fingal was the inability to control aspects of the project, notably by winning agreement from third parties who had a bearing on the development. "Our experience of SDZs has not been good because in each case the factors which influence the achievement of the goals are outside our control."

One difficulty related to overhead 110 kilovolt powerlines owned by the ESB. The SDZ targets assumed high density but overhead lines worked against this. Fingal asked the ESB to move the lines underground but it refused. The lines serve the large IBM site nearby. If the lines were underground it would make them too difficult to service in an emergency, leaving IBM without critical power supplies.

"The ESB told us they had no intention of moving the cables underground. They chose for operational reasons not to underground them."

Another difficulty related to a requirement for rail links as specified by An Bord Pleanála. The old disused Navan-Dublin rail line connects to the Sligo-Maynooth line close by Hansfield. Getting that line reopened would have greatly added to the densities achievable on the site.

Iarnród Eireann refused the council's request to reopen the line however. "We had to take a very conservative view on density because we had no confidence that the rail line would be reinstated," Mr O'Connor said.

A third difficulty related to St Joseph's Hospital, which sits in the Hansfield SDZ. The hospital was unwilling to work with the council so it had to work around it rather than with it. "They were perfectly justified in not taking part," Mr O'Connor said. "The Bord asked us to do that and we tried but they refused."

Ironically, the delays in getting the Hansfield SDZ going are blocking other schemes proposed for the area, but outside the SDZ programme. Menolly Homes and Manor Park Homes sought permission through the normal planning channels for a 920-home residential scheme at Hansfield but this failed.

Fingal refused just last week on the grounds that the scheme would be premature pending a decision on the draft SDZ scheme from An Bord Pleanála.

Mr O'Connor believes that the Government itself faces some of the blame for difficulties experienced at Hansfield. "The Government comes out and announces the SDZ, then does absolutely nothing to help us achieve it with improvements to the infrastructure," he said. "The Government is not delivering on transport."