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Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Updates

DLR pier.jpeg

There’s a lot happening and a lot changing in DLR, including a revitalisation of Dún Laoghaire harbour, new bus routes around the city, updates on the living streets plan, and much more. Read it all here!

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Living Streets
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Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council approved the Living Streets Plan in March this year, after a long and considered public consultation.

 

The idea behind it is to create a safer town for people to walk around with a serious reduction of traffic through the town centre, to increase the amount of greenery and seating, including outdoor dining, and to make Dún Laoghaire a safer, more pleasant town with less noise and car pollution. The pedestrianisation of George’s Street is now underway, marking the start of the improvements to our town.

 

With this plan, we can create more pleasant streets in our town for all people to enjoy. Keep an eye on DLRCC news to stay up to date!

 
Bus Connects

 

The Bus Connects plan sets to upgrade our bus system through route improvements and better bus frequency. Part of this plan was a redesign of the entire bus network, and it is live in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford. You may not know this, but the Dublin Bus network was first developed in the late 19th century, with little route revision since, so a lot of our bus routes have survived the test of time essentially only for heritage reasons – in other words, they need serious rethinking. New bus corridors and cycle lanes are also part of this plan, as well as the rolling out of a zero-emission bus fleet with electric busses already on the roads. On top of that, we’re working on an improved ticketing and payment system.

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The various routes will now be categorised differently, with specific busses connecting towns and suburbs with other forms of transport, while others will link local areas and link retail centres with onward transport. This is all to avoid unnecessary trips into the city centre and generally to improve accessibility around the selected counties.

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So, what does this mean for Dún Laoghaire? We’ve already kissed the 75 goodbye and welcomed the S8, between Dún Laoghaire, Tallaght, and City West every 30 minutes, and the L25, going between Dún Laoghaire and Dundrum LUAS every 15 minutes. These new busses are huge improvements compared to the 75, which was amongst the worst performing bus routes in Dublin for years. This isn’t all that’s going to change however, so make sure to stay tuned to hear about what the government has planned to improve your transport options and increase your freedom and independence through mobility!

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Offshore Wind
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The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications developed the Offshore Wind Delivery Plan to install windmills at different spots along the coast of Ireland.  This Plan was developed in collaboration with various departments, while also taking guidance from international best practices, and working with communities and sectors impacted by the eventual installation of windmills in the Irish sea. So far, we’ve collected enough renewable energy to power 2.5 million homes. What we have planned next is to collect more wind capacity from existing and future windmills in order to meet the Government’s 2030 climate targets for renewable energy. If all goes according to plan, we will collect 37 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050.

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The reason that we have not opted for floating windmills that you may see in Portugal or Scotland is that they are only available at pilot level and are not available for commercial use. It will take years for floating sites to be viable options and we simply don’t have the time to lose. We are setting up trial floating sites and will monitor the technology and progress on an ongoing basis. 

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Russia’s war on Ukraine has also showed us the immense risk of relying on other countries for our energy demand. This offshore wind energy plan would make us completely energy independent within 10 years. Offshore wind is our key to unlocking cheaper, cleaner, and safer energy.

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Navy Boats in Dún Laoghaire Harbour
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Since the Stenaline left Dún Laoghaire in 2015, the harbour has been empty and neglected, but this is hopefully about to turn around.

 

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and the Department of Defence are working on an arrangement to base the only east coast naval base out of Dún Laoghaire harbour in the coming years! This comes after the Commission on the Defence Forces reported that the Irish military needs to work on its capacity building, involving the acquisition of more naval ships and larger crews to work on them.

 

The navy ship in DL harbour would patrol the Irish sea, carry out fishing rights checks, and inspect subsea cables and future offshore windmills. As well as that, we’ve been promised that existing and planned harbour activity will not be compromised by this plan.

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