Charlemont Charlatanism - Village Magazine

PB July-August 2023 July-August 2023 21

his article looks at whether the

already dysfunctional and long-

delayed Metro risks further

disruption by the illegal and pre-

emptive choice of an inappropriate

terminus, at Charlemont, for the crucial

interchange between the underground metro

and other modes of transport on the south side.

Dublin’s delayed and

diminished Metro

In 2019, the National Transport Authority (NTA)

shelved plans for the southernmost leg of

Dublin’s Metro. Originally a 26-km fully-

segregated Metro Link rail line had been due to

open in 2027.

Now the plan is for construction, 2025-35, of

a railway approximately 18.8km in length,

12km underground, punctuated by 16 new

underground stations as well as existing Luas

stops. It will include 9.4km and 2.3km sections

of single-bore tunnel running beneath Dublin

City Centre and Dublin Airport, respectively.The

Charlemont

Charlatanism

Dublin’s proposed

Metro is an unplanned

mistake, facilitated by

egregious procedural

and consultation

failures over

Charlemont station,

that risk derailing it

By Mannix Flynn

NEWS

journey time will be 25 minutes from Swords to

Charlemont, and it is envisaged that frequency

of trains will be every three minutes at peak

time carrying up to 20,000 passengers in each

direction per hour.

But why stop at Charlemont of

all places?

The sole aim of the only study carried out by the

NTA before they revised their capacity forecast

was to identify where a “tie-in”, a link between

transport modes, should go. Despite becoming

a totally dierent project, the NTA are hell-bent

on sticking rigidly to their original plan to

replace the Luas Green line with an above-

ground, segregated, driverless Metro rather

than, for example, being underground.

It seems, for good or bad, they are trying to

create facts on the ground so an unapproved

decision can never be undone.

In early June, the Secretary General of the

Department of Transport, Ken Spratt, told the

Public Accounts Committee that the spend on

the MetroLink project to the end of March of

this year was €115.3 million — in addition to the

€166 million spent on the Metro North project

the last of which was spent in 2014. The

envisaged total cost at the moment is €9.5bn,

though “probable” ranges are €7.2bn to

€12.3bn. An extraordinary €.44bn is predicted

in “base land and property” costs, for lucky

landowners, for the most part over an

underground.

Critical connection

NTA chief executive Anne Graham said the

Metrolink could not terminate at St Stephen’s

Green as it would be disruptive to commuters

who were seeking to use the Luas to continue

their journey. The case, however, has not been

made.

“It’s on the east side of Stephen’s Green,

that’s where the metro station is proposed to

be, rather than the current west side where the

green line operates currently”, she said.

Charlemont was chosen for the terminus as

it provides more options for future planning,

she added. Presumably the reason the site on

Charlemont is even being considered for the

terminus is as it’s a rare site undergoing new

22 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 23

development along the former Harcourt St Line

close-ish to the city centre. We don’t know this

for certain of course - because the process to

explain what’s going on is deﬁcient.

But there are major logistical problems with

Charlemont too: drawings issued for the

Charlemont Metro Station show two lines

about 200 metres apart, one below ground and

one on a bridge.

They are connected by three flights of

escalators, a walk in the open and three ﬂights

of two-way steps. It will not achieve the

“seamlessness” touted by the Quixotic NTA.

Business case and Railway

Order still pending

A “preliminary” business case cornily titled

‘Integrated Transport. Integrated Life’ was

submitted to the Cabinet in September 2022

and was followed by an application for a

Railway Order toAn Bord Pleanála, consultation

on which ended in January 2023.

Works are premature and

unlawful

Yet work was afoot as long as a year ago, with

the NTA already implementing their original

plan, which will include an inevitable €2.5bn

public-private partnership, though this as

always will inevitably work to the

disproportionate beneﬁt of the private; and

creating serious, dicult-to-reverse activity on

the ground. The point of planning is to avoid

this.

Let’s see what’s happening.

Hines’ development at Grand

Parade, Charlemont

In March 2017, Hines, one of the biggest US

developers currently building Ireland’s biggest

construction scheme at Cherrywood, submitted

a planning application to Dublin City Council

(DCC) for an oce development right on the

preferred option for the Luas “tie-in” location.

The development is be called 2 Grand Parade,

and it embraces the signiﬁcant modernist

protected structure, the old Carroll’s Cigarettes

building, later the headquarters of dodgy Irish

Nationwide Building Society. It also included

the construction of a new multi-storey oce

block.

NTA and TII concerned so seek

pre-development agreement

from developer

The NTA and Transportation Infrastructure

Ireland (TII) immediately raised concerns about

the impact of the development on the existing

Luas and on future Metro proposals and asked

Hines to “consult with the NTA in regard to the

development proposal with the future delivery

of New Metro North and its extension to Metro

South”. DCC’s permission included the

following condition:

“Prior to commencement of development,

the developer shall enter into an agreement

with TII/ NTA…to accommodate the potential

development, construction and operation of a

metro or light railway on, at, or near the site of

the approved development”.

So far so good; but what happened next is of

very serious concern.

The agreement the NTA sought from Hines

was not merely to “accommodate the potential

development” of a Metro station but was to get

them to actually build the foundations for it

before it was ever approved. These “enabling

works” would create the “exoskeleton” box or

framework for the ultimate station.

Substantial station works now

completed

Enabling works are works that make the site

ready for construction works. That is not what

we have seen at Charlemont: for a start a box

is not a preparation but an actual work of

construction. Furthermore the works have cost

€12.5m up to 2022. The station box required

the construction of a concrete ‘slab’ that rests

on the piled walls and forms the roof of the

station. This necessitated two overnight

concrete pours (continuous 16 hours - 8pm to

12 noon) to construct the unusually thick (and

expensive) slab of 2.6m speciﬁed by the station

architects, who want to preserve the aesthetic

of an underground station without any visible

pillars. The durable speciﬁcation hardly meets

the prescription of “enabling works”.

Between Hines and the authorities they

decided that the public were not to be told that

Metro infrastructure was being built.

What should have happened, to follow the

precedent from 2008 of similar enabling works

carried out under the new Mater Hospital for

the (shelved) Metro North project, is that the

NTA would: secure Ministerial approval to do

the enabling works; secure a specific

construction budget, separate from the budget

designated for the submission for the Metro

Railway Order planning application; wait to

construct the enabling works only after the

Railway Order was approved by ABP; and follow

EU procurement procedures in tendering for the

construction of the enabling works.

Instead, the NTA took the decision to proceed

with the Charlemont works themselves and did

not ask the Minister, did not secure a speciﬁc

budget but used other funds (presumably

those earmarked for the Railway Order

application but not for construction), did not

wait for the democratic process of the granting

of a Railway Order, and did not engage in EU

procurement procedures.

Not only did the NTA not follow proper

procedure and precedent, it arranged for

construction of railway components that had

no permission of any standing in law. That is, it

forced through the construction of the

foundations of its desired Charlemont metro

station, unlawfully.

The NTA claims that Hines secured valid

planning permission on its behalf. But Hines’

permission for its oce block was granted

under the Planning and Development Act 2000

which expressly excludes permission for

“railway works”. It is, therefore, impossible for

Hines to have obtained valid permission.

The fundamental fact is that the NTA

subverted the prescribed process, procedures,

precedent and law in order to get its desired

station built – before a more appropriate

process might adjudicate another site as more

suitable.

In early 2022, the station box works were

complete and Hines finally began the

construction of its oce building.

A spokesman for TII conﬁrmed that Hines

undertook enabling work. “Under the

agreement the State will fund the cost of the

enabling works [approximately €12.5 million]

and will reimburse Hines for the works when

completed”. It is not clear which government

agency has funded this unlawful commitment.

The Mn: Owen Keegn, Dublin City Chief

Executive

Residents, many afﬂuent, in one of the

richest and most elegant parts of Dublin 6,

wonder whether the area is really the best

place for a city-centre terminus for the next

25 to 30 years

22 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 23

The delinquent authorities have beneﬁted

from the support of the likes of the Dublin

Commuter Coalition which asserted that the

works are merely “enabling”.

Pre-commencement

agreement required

City Chief Executive, Owen Keegan, places a lot

of store on delivery of the Bord Pleanála

requirement that, prior to commencement of

the oce building, the developer shall enter

into the agreement with the NTA and TII.

It is not clear whether it was envisaged, or

legally required, that such agreement be

subjected to planning approval.

And the condition seems to contemplate

reaching of that agreement before planning

permission has been sought for the line the

station would serve! It is a grotesque

subversion of the logic of planning.

And that’s parking the issue that it should

have been applied for as a Railway Order not a

planning permission!

Substantial risk to the overall

MetroLink project

The circumstances under which the NTA

reached such an agreement with Hines and the

fact that works have already been completed

at a cost of at least €12.5m, pose a very

substantial risk to the overall MetroLink

project. It appears likely that the 40 south

Dublin residents’ associations, which have

called for the line to terminate at a city-centre

location such as St Stephen’s Green, will

robustly challenge the legality of the NTA’s

actions.

It seems unlikely that a court would ﬁnd that

circumventing the planning system by a cosy

internal agreement was lawful. Still less is it

likely the internal agreement would preclude

compliance with other parallel regimes such as

that of Railway Orders.

Only when NTA/TII obtain full planning

permission to construct part or all of a Metro

station, can they reach an agreement with

Hines to build a station box on NTA/TII’s

behalf.

The NTA seems to be ignoring the strictures

that you would expect the largest

infrastructure project in the history of the

state to adhere to, namely:

• Compliance with Railway and Planning Law;

•

Compliance with EU law on environmental

impact assessments including its

requirement of public consultation;

•

Procurement Law. Station works should be

put out to fair tender under EU procurement

law;

• Proper use of funds. The NTA has a budget

to prepare a Railway Order Application not a

budget to construct infrastructure in advance

of even a business-case sign-o;

• Ministerial approval.

Costly duplication of

Infrastructure and a lock-in for

the NTA’s preferred route

The NTA Metro proposal will duplicate the Luas

Green Line for the section from St Stephen’s

Green to Charlemont; i.e. while we are waiting

for the predicted post-2042 capacity issues to

be addressed, the Luas line and Metro line will

both be running. The cost of this duplication is

expected to be around €500m for tunnel

excavation but more especially Charlemont

station build-out. It will only be recoverable if

the infrastructure is re-used after 2042. The

NTA’s own feasibility studies state that the two

alternative potential Metro-extension routes to

the south west (which badly needs new

transport infrastructure) and south central via

UCD are not viable. Therefore, if a station at

Charlemont is built the only way to get a return

on the €500m duplication of rail infrastructure

is to replace the Green Line Luas post-2042.

This will be a de facto lock-in of the NTA’s

original preferred route. This is why the NTA are

going to such extraordinary lengths to ensure

it can get Charlemont built.

Many argue that a terminus at

Charlemont is misplaced

Residents, many auent, in one of the richest

and most elegant parts of Dublin 6, wonder

whether the area is really the best place for a

city-centre terminus for the next 25 to 30 years.

The solution they propose is build a shorter

route, with one less station and adapt the St

Stephen’s Green station into a proper City

Centre Terminus. They argue that this will save

the taxpayer hundreds of millions of Euros.

I believe a judicial review of the aair is in

order and there should be an investigation into

then Deputy Council City Planner Mary Conway,

and her superiors, who handled the débacle.

For and against Charlemont as

site for terminus

Residents groups argue against a Charlemont

terminus for the following reasons:

•

It would compound already huge trac

congestion which often develops along the

existing trac black spot at Portobello on

the canal.

•

It is intrinsically an inappropriate site for a

major Terminus being land-locked on three

sides with the canal on the fourth side.

• It would provide a poor interchange from the

Luas – entailing a 400m walk from above-

ground Luas to below-ground Metro

• It would provide poor transport connections

because of poor access for buses, taxis and

cars, and indeed poor local car-parking and

disability access.

• Terminating at Charlemont would lock in the

Green Line replacement as the only viable

future Metro South Route – yet no decision

on Metro South is ocially being made now.

•

Charlemont is inappropriately far south

limiting the scope to bring Metro to key

densely populated areas eg Rathmines,

Knocklyon, UCD.

On the other hand the NTA emphasises the

proximity of the interchange at Charlemont

between the Luas and the MetroLink, much

closer than would be the case at St Stephen’s

Green. It also believes future extension options

from Charlemont are attractive.

As always with planning, it is important to

distinguish process from substance. The

former planner who facilitated the mistreatment

of the scheme under the Planning Act, an abuse

of the public’s right to consultation as well as

a possibly expensive strategic transportation

mistake, and the Chief Executive of DCC, who

grounded and justiﬁed it, need to consider

their positions for egregious failures under

both.

New ofﬁce development t “tie in” djoins

the former Crroll’s building

Gerrd Mnnix Flynn is n independent Dublin

City Councillor for the South Est Inner City

which includes the Chrlemont re.