Greens to campaign over estate's future

The Green Party will front a campaign to "keep Kinsealy green" over coming weeks, following reports that Mr Charles Haughey's Abbeville estate may be sold to property developers.

While the 270-acre estate is designated in the Fingal County Development Plan for mainly agricultural purposes, local residents said yesterday they fully expected new owners to attempt to have the estate rezoned for house building.

At least part of the land has the advantage of mains drainage, which was laid across the estate some years ago to serve a group of houses known as the Baskin Cottages.

Under current guidelines, a housing density of 10 houses to the acre would not be excessive if the land was rezoned, a move which would allow new owners to build at least 2,500 houses. Given the housing crisis in Dublin, developers would have a strong argument to present to councillors for rezoning.

However, according to local Green Party councillor Ms Heidi Bedell, the size of such a development would require an integrated area plan (IAP) to be drawn up, and possibly an environmental impact statement.

The council has completed its IAPs in connection with its 1999 County Development Plan and is not due to replace the plan until 2004.

Ms Bedell said there had been "too much development al ready" in Malahide and said green belts were necessary to protect wildlife as well as the quality of life for locals.

Locals have in recent years lost campaigns to preserve green belts between Malahide and Swords, and at Mountgorry, and are adamant that an alternative use for the estate be found, according to Green Party TD Mr Trevor Sargent.

Mr Sargent said the estate had been organically managed and represented "one of the few places left which haven't been drenched in tons of artificial fertilisers for decades".

Mr Sargent suggested that Teagasc - the State's agricultural advisory body which coincidentally has a research station almost at the gates of Abbeville - could realise its own ambitions for an organic horticultural research farm, at Kinsealy. "Mr Haughey, perhaps through his misfortunes elsewhere, may be in the position to do the State some service," he said.

"It is one of the options we will be raising. I would say there will be a lively local debate on the issue and the Green Party will be at the forefront of the campaign to keep Kinsealy green."