`Special area' status is sought for Killiney Hill

The campaign to achieve a Special Area Amenity Order for Dalkey/ Killiney Hill, in south Co Dublin, begins in earnest today as a motion seeking official support for it is tabled at Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

The campaign emerged out of public protest at council plans to put a travellers' halting site in Dalkey Quarry, and residents deny that it is now merely a move to frustrate plans for the site in the upmarket area.

Instead, they stress the natural amenity value of Dalkey/Killiney Hill, and the quarry as a centre for international rock climbers.

But the Fianna Fail leader on the council, Mrs Betty Coffey, who will table today's motion, said her intentions were "a bit of both; that is, to frustrate the halting site plans and to protect the wonderful amenity that is Killiney and Dalkey Hill".

Mrs Coffey said the council's halting site plans had shown it did not accept "this is a special area. We have recently established a Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Tourist Board and hired a full-time chief executive."

"Dalkey and Killiney Hill is already a venue for tourists, walkers, day trippers and local residents, while the quarry itself already attracts international rock climbers. We should be encouraging this. We are trying to say: `Look we have a lot to offer'.

"Instead, the council comes up with this totally unsuitable site for a travellers' halt in the quarry. It is almost funny.

"My motion is aimed at getting the council to accept that this is a special area and take its protection on board as part of what the council does with the heritage areas drive.

"The SAAO is the ultimate form of protection and once the council is committed to it, it will serve as a focus for their plans in the area. I see the coastline also as a suitable site for another SAAO, and hope to get the council to come around to that view too," added Mrs Coffey.

She made "no excuse" for her opposition to the halting site in Dalkey Quarry. Mrs Coffey said the council was fully prepared to accept its obligations under the recent Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act.

Under this Act, all local housing authorities will have to establish a series of halting sites in their areas.

If they fail to do so, within a period to be decided by the Minister for the Environment, then the responsibility for the decision will pass to the local authority staff.

Ironically, that Act was drafted on the instruction of the former Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal, the Democratic Left TD for Wicklow, Ms Liz McManus, who is also involved in a campaign for an SAAO for Bray Head in Co Wicklow.

Ms McManus said that while there were no plans for a halting site on the head, the pressure for an SAAO "comes from the housing expansion of Bray and Grey stones".

A recent planning permission to McInerney Construction for 55 houses on the lower northern slopes of the head by Bray Urban Council was opposed unanimously by the council's elected members.

But the authority granted permission, and while all elected members had appealed the permission to An Bord Pleanala, Ms McManus maintained the issue showed the need for Bray Head to be protected in a form which provided guidelines from which the council officials could take their lead.

A campaign group - Save Our Head Organisation (SOHO) - has been set up under the chairmanship of Ms McManus.

In addition to opposing the McInerney permission, the group has recently objected to a planning application for a golf clubhouse and 18-hole golf course on the western side of the head.

The application under the name of Frenchpark Financial Services, a recently formed company whose directors are local builder, Mr Eddie O'Dwyer, and a Dublin solicitor, is understood to be part of a deal to transfer Bray Golf Club from the town centre to Bray Head. This would release the club's lands for development.

Commenting on the application, Ms McManus said: "It may well be that a golf club is one of the developments permitted even under an SAAO. But without the SAAO, development is taking place willy-nilly.

"Wicklow County Council, which is the planning authority here, has designated Bray Head as its natural amenity flagship under a regional initiative and, even if golf clubs are permitted, we feel it would be premature in the absence of an overall structure such as an SAAO."

SOHO has held public meetings in Bray and will hold another meeting, this time with interested public groups in Greystones, in the La Touche Hotel, this Thursday evening.

Part of the SOHO strategy is to follow the example of the Howth Sutton 2000 group whose 10-year campaign for a SAAO for Howth Head is expected to yield results within weeks.

Ms Jean Finn, a former chairwoman of the Howth Sutton 2000 group, has already addressed the Bray campaigners, describing Bray and Howth Heads as "two of Dublin's "green" lungs which should be entitled to equal protection".