Ikea development hearing told early M50 charges likely

Congestion charges will be needed on the M50 much earlier than envisaged if the Ikea development goes ahead, an oral hearing was told yesterday.

Rob Kelly, chartered engineer appearing on behalf of the Irish Hardware and Building Materials Association (IHBMA), said the M50 upgrade plans anticipated a "demand management" charge on the motorway after 2015, but if the furniture superstore was given approval, this would need to be introduced at a much earlier stage.

The proposed development, on 12.6 hectares close to the Ballymun Road junction of the M50, was granted permission by Fingal County Council last October and an oral hearing by An Bord Pleanála inspector Keith Sargeant continued yesterday.

Mr Kelly said the IHBMA was concerned about the impact the development would have on congestion levels on the M50 and on their members in terms of accessibility and servicing.

However, Seán McGrath, senior engineer with Fingal County Council, said Ikea would attract less trips than people expected and stipulations in the planning permission, including subsidised home deliveries and increased parking charges at peak demand, would ensure the development could be accommodated. He said any queuing that occur- red in accessing or exiting the car park would occur "entirely within the applicant's own lands and will have no impact on the public road network".

John Spain, presenting for Treasury Holdings, said it was seriously concerned Ikea would utilise all of the capacity on the local road network in Ballymun, impeding the future development of its town centre.

Treasury Holdings is currently involved in the development of the centre. He pointed out that in a recent decision, Dublin City Council refused to give it permission to increase the amount of retail space in the centre on the grounds that it would "adversely affect the use of a national road or other major road" and would "generate traffic movements which would tend to cause serious traffic congestion".

"If there are road capacity limitations in Ballymun Town Centre, preference should be given to the town centre development," he said.

Planning consultant Bernard Dee of GVA Planning, for Tesco Ireland, said it was "reluctant objectors" to the development.

He said Tesco had no objection to Ikea entering the market, "provided they didn't sell beans", but were concerned about the affect on the efficiency of the company's national distribution centre. The centre is 400m off Ballymun Road, handles 25 per cent of the fresh food products distributed in Ireland and employs 500 people.

"Should the congestion predicted by the National Roads Authority occur then the operational efficiency of the distribution centre would be severely impaired with consequent relocation required at very significant cost and with associated job losses," he said.