Eveybody wants to sign

Your comments !

So what the cost

Read about
PEOPLE POWER

Why should you have to travel to
Balbriggan,
Trim,
Ardee,
Dundalk
to have a
VARIETY of shopping.

Sunday, April 25, 2004
By Kathleen Barrington

A Meath woman who campaigned in favour of a supermarket development in Trim has accused the town council of double standards.
Mags McGivern made the accusation after a television programme highlighted the sale of a site to develop a four-storey, 58-bedroom hotel opposite Trim's medieval castle.

The castle featured in the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart.

RTE's Prime Time last week reported that the council sold the 4,110 square metre site to local developer David O'Brien Construction for €569,000 in May 2002.

Independent councillor Phillip Cantwell, who voted against the sale, said this was a "giveaway price'' for the site, which he believed was worth between €2 million and €3.5 million.

David O'Brien Construction subsequently obtained planning permission to develop a hotel despite objections from the Heritage Service about the "adverse and unacceptable'' impact of the hotel on the town.

The Heritage Service is part of the Department of the Environment, but environment minister Martin Cullen last year ignored a recommendation that an appeal should be lodged against the construction of the hotel.

Last month, former taoiseach John Bruton expressed concern to the council that tender documents were based on an assumption that "ground bearing conditions and archaeology preclude underground parking''. The successful tender provides for underground car parking for 100 cars.

Bruton noted that an architect's report on which tenders were to be based said that three-storey structures would be acceptable, but made no mention of four-storey structures. He wanted to know whether all tenderers had an equal chance to amend their tenders.

While the council was allowing the hotel development in front of the castle, McGivern and a number of other women said obstacles were placed in the way of a discount supermarket on the outskirts of the town.

They launched a campaign for a new supermarket in Trim after a planning application from German discounter Lidl was rejected.The campaigners said the town needed competition, as there is currently only one supermarket, a SuperValu owned by the Nally family.

Trim planners turned down the Lidl application because, they said, they wanted to concentrate development in the town centre in line with the development plan.

The planners also objected to the Lidl design.

The campaigners eventually persuaded the councillors to change Trim's retail strategy so that Lidl and others would have a chance of success in future planning applications.

Lidl subsequently won its appeal to An Bord Pleanala, and is now planning to develop a shopping centre on the outskirts of the town.

Trim town manager Oliver Perkins rejected McGivern's allegations of double standards. He said that, in the case of the Lidl application, the recommendation of the planners had been accepted.

He said the town centre site had been sold with the approval of the councillors following a tender process and all aspects of the tendering process were complied with.

Some townspeople remain unhappy at a council decision in 2002 to give the contract for a town centre supermarket to the Bennetts/SuperValu consortium, in which the Nally family is involved.

Local sources believe the council should have awarded the tender to rival supermarket chain Tesco, which offered €3.2 million for the Emmett Street site, the same as the price offered by the Nallys.