Taney Playground Going Ahead
The Parks Department in DLRCoCo has notified us to tell us that the playground planned for the green between Taney Avenue and Crescent will be going ahead. This is great news, and we would like to give huge thanks to both The Goatstown Playground Group and Cllr. Karen Furlong for following through on this. It is a MUCH needed amenity for the local area.
The following is taken from the email received from Helena McGorman , Senior Executive Parks Superintendent in DLR Parks Department. The tender will be going out next week. Hopefully we’ll have the playground in place by the end of the year.
Background:
Some consultation took place in the Summer of 2016 with the group seeking a playground in Taney. They had approached the Parks Dept with the request and were advised to ascertain the level of interest there was in the area for a playground at Taney as a first step. It was established that there was significant support for a playground in Taney and also that there was significant opposition.
The issue was raised as a motion on the Dundrum Area meeting Agenda in October 2016 and it was agreed that the Parks Dept would carry out a public consultation in relation to the provision of a playground in the area. It had been established that there was a deficit in play provision in this area in the Open Space Strategy in 2012 and Taney Open Space was identified in the Goatstown Local Area Plan 2012 as a suitable location for a playground amenity.
There were two potential sites identified in the area, Rosemount Open Space and Taney Open Space. As Rosemount is the larger of the two open spaces it was felt that it could be accommodated there. The Parks Dept carried out a public consultation in relation to Rosemount in November 2016, there was no support for the playground on this site. A number of other issues were brought up in relation to the demand for Community facilities in Rosemount and it also became obvious that the locating of a playground would involve moving pitches which met with further opposition. It was therefore considered premature to locate the facility in Rosemount pending the clarification and resolution of the issues on the site and and the general lack of local support. Following on from this process the Parks Dept carried out a similar consultation in the Taney Area in March/April 2017.
Taney Consultation
This was carried out March /April 2017 (closing date 14th April), and involved the distribution of leaflets to all the homes on Taney Court, Rise, Crescent, Avenue, Grove and Farmhill Park -(by a private distribution company engaged by the Council – “All Homes”) Two petitions were received by The Council, one from those who want a playground and another from those against as well as other individual submissions. The Council, in analysing the submissions only considered one submission per household (e.g. if there were two or more signatures from one household, this was considered one submission).
The outcome was that 158 valid submissions were received as follows: 71 houses against (45% of accepted submissions) and 87 house for a playground in Taney (55% of accepted submissions). 40 households signed both and therefore had to be excluded. We also excluded submissions from outside of the consultation area.
Given that there is a majority in favour, the Council now wish to proceed to provide the playground or play area and to this end we have met with representatives of both sides. In an effort to progress the project we outlined an alternative to the traditional playground which addressed some of the issues of those representing the people opposed to the facility but they have expressed objections to the alternative also. They do not want a playground on the public open space in Taney, they want it in Rosemount.
The proposed way forward:
As can be seen from the outcome of the consultation there is a majority in favour of the playground in Taney and as a result we propose to proceed to tender for the traditional playground that we consulted on widely in March/April of this year.