Residents of Bray seek rethink on €2bn town centre

Residents of Bray, Co Wicklow, who are demanding a rethink on a €2 billion new town centre development have published videos of emergency rescue workers on the site during severe flooding.

The residents based in the Little Bray area around Castle Street and the former Bray golf club said they were astonished when members of Bray Town Council rezoned the land for town centre-style development.

They fear that unless the development is radically altered it will block the release of floodwaters from the nearby river Dargle and cause severe flooding of local homes similar to Hurricane Charlie in the mid-1980s.

Much of the site used to belong to Bray golf club, which swapped its holding of about 55 acres between the Superquinn shopping centre and the coastal railway line for a new 18-hole course on Bray Head as part of a deal with local property developer Eddie Dwyer.

Mr Dwyer added additional land to the north of the site and in September 2003 sold it on to a consortium for a figure reported to be in the region of €100 million.

The consortium, Pizarro, is led by Dublin developer Paddy Kelly, one of those involved in the Smithfield market development. Pizarro also includes such well-known businesses as Durkan New Homes, Alanis Ltd (controlled by the McCormack family), Bray property developers Newlan McSharry and construction company Pierse.

Plans have now been submitted by Pizarro to build one of the biggest town centre developments in the State, valued at more than €2 billion. The project is to be carried out over two phases, with a projected finish date of 2013.

Envisaged is a public park and a GAA playing field on high ground at the north end of the site, and high-density retail stores and apartments with a two-level car park - on what residents claim was the flood plain next to the river.

"This will not only take away a hugely important part of the flood plain, but it will entirely cut off the traditional escape route of the flood waters to the sea from our homes," said residents' spokeswoman Noeleen McManus.

"Flood waters in all four of the major floods this area suffered in the last 100 years tear down the lower and middle Dargle roads and then pour into the back of Dwyer Park and then on to the golf links. Old people say this is the original course of the river," she told The Irish Times.

Residents have set up a website called "Braywatch" and published videos of rescue work in the area which was one of the worst affected in the State when Hurricane Charlie hit in the mid-1980s.

The video on the group's website shows severe flooding with rescue workers taking a capsized boat off deeply flooded golf club lands, while surrounding roads were ripped up and houses flooded to a depth of about four feet.

Locals collected more than 350 signatures in a campaign for land to be returned to its original open space zoning and have petitioned Minister for the Environment Dick Roche and the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Liz McManus, both local TDs.

"We've started a campaign, which we call Swap, because we're asking that the high-density buildings be moved uphill and the park and public playing pitches planned for the high ground be moved down to the river, in accordance with OPW and international guidelines for flood plains," said Ms McManus.