Just as we relax having inspected the Dublin Docklands Development Plan, we are becoming aware that the Statutory bodies owe us, the residents of the Docklands Area and areas subtending it, a great deal of interactive communication . We have to ask our planners to get the Dublin Port and Docks Board together with the D.D.D.A. to co-ordinate their approach to us, the humble citizens, who have to rely on their professional skills and their concern for our well-being.

The Dublin Bay Project is the management of our new sewage system at Ringsend and the upgrading of the quality of water in the bay, to meet with European standards before the year 2,000. The final details of the sewage plant are, one supposes open to modification. The streets of Ringsend, Seán Moore Road, Beach Road and Strand Road vibrate and reverberate day and night with heavy lorries. As we take on board the recent relief that restrictions on heavy lorries will bring to our smaller residential side roads, we must consider the traffic that will occur when the actual work on the sewage tanks commences.

Machinery will have to be brought into the site at the Poolbeg, workers and their cars too; and on completion we will be faced with sludge lorries, as each with a payload of twenty tonnes, will make 44 journeys through Ringsend every day, that is, based on a five day working week, or 36 a day based on a six day working week. About twelve months ago, a number of people from the Bremen Road area, suggested that this sludge should be taken up and down the coast by small ships, and should be transported inland to the forestry and agricultural sites that it is destined for. The ports of Arklow, Wicklow and Louth come to mind.

A new group are seeking the relocation of the proposed sewage works, as they are indicated in the final plans of the Dublin Bay Project. However the recovery of the harbour at the Poolbeg, should not be incompatible with the necessity to avoid these 20 tonne lorries shaking the streets of Ringsend. The relocation of the tanks some distance away from the port might make the loading of sludge onto boats, financially prohibitive. No doubt a compromise could be reached by discussion. 'NewsFour' has had discussions with residents in the area, and the general consensus is that extra heavy goods vehicles trundling through the area, are to be avoided wherever possible. The feeling is that they have "taken enough". This brings us to section 6.5.2.7. of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority's plan.

"Consideration is given to the provision of new roads as follows, New access from Beach Road, to remove the traffic from Seán Moore Road by creating a link with South Bank Road".
It is to be hoped that this proposal will be thrown open for discussion with all the residents concerned. Some of the houses on Beach Road are not set back as far from the traffic, as are the houses on Seán Moore Road.

However, we are assured that nothing is engraved in stone, and we continue to hope for the greatest possible discussion and reasoned exchange of ideas between all of us as the months go by. The decision on roads is a matter for the Corporation and the roads authorities, so we will be calling on our councillors to represent us behind open doors in these affairs.