Between 50 and 60 people turned out on Friday 1 August to support local fishermen, excluded from Greystones Harbour since 2007, as they landed a fine catch of crab and lobster and demanded that they be allowed to return to their traditional base, with immediate access to the promised moorings, storage and other facilities they used to enjoy.

For the first time since the harbour project began back in late 2007, the Agenda for the Greystones Municipal Council meeting this evening (Tuesday 29 July) does not include the harbour as an item on the agenda.

It simply is not there.

One might ask, why? 

Is it because the entire board of Sisk is on holidays? Or Mr Sean Quirke, the WCC director of services in charge of the project?

And if so, is either of these reasons enough to stop councillors from discussing the continued lack of progress at the harbour and the latest of Sisk’s broken promises?

Strangely enough, just recently GUBOH has come into possession of an interesting document prepared on the instructions of the Sisk group for the company’s architects. 

This is Sisk’s new scheme for building the housing and other elements at the harbour, initially promised for “the second quarter” of 2014 — now just about elapsed with no sign of any activity — and later shifted to “later in 2014”.

One thing odd about this comprehensive plan is that it has a start date, and that date is soon. 

The start date for Sisk’s new construction plan is 5 August 2014 — next Tuesday, one week after the Municipal Council meets without the harbour on its agenda.

Is this a coincidence, or is it the actual reason that the harbour has been omitted as an item on the council agenda for the first time in seven years?

No doubt councillors will want an answer to that question tonight. 

The photo attached shows the first page of the document to show a start date, page 12. We have included the full document in our files, both on our website and Facebook page.

But councillors will need to ask a lot more questions to get to the bottom of the many issues raised by this scheduling document, which seems, to say the least of it, a little optimistic about the start date, seeing as none of the preparatory site work usually essential before beginning a project of this magnitude has been done, and there has been no sign of any staff moving onto the site.

The first such issue is the proposed construction period. 

This is 61 months, or FIVE years and one month.

If the work did start on 5 August 2014, and all went to plan, then the build would not be be complete until September/October 2019.

Let’s just recall that Sisk have been blighting Greystones with their presence since 7 August 2007 when Bord Pleanala finally approved their project. That’s two days short of seven years on their supposed start date next week.

Or 84 months. Add 61, and you get 145 months, or a total of 12 years and three months.

The original schedule from start to finish of the project was to be 52 months, or four years and four months. It should have been finished entirely in March or April 2012.

So if they did start next Tuesday, we could expect to have Sisk in Greystones for close on three times the original planned period — 2.8 times longer, to be exact.

Is this acceptable? 

Well, on the one hand a start would be very welcome. But the timescale is absurd — five whole years and one month to build 375 dwellings and 6,245 sq m of commercial space! 

The second issue is: what happens to the site during this five year-plus period?

We’ve already had Sisk here for seven years. 

At every turn, they have refused and resisted every proposal — every reasonable proposal — for a comprehensive approach to remedying the desolate and ugly character of the site while the community waits for them to get their finger out. 

They resisted taking down the hoardings that gave GUBOH its name and raison d’etre

They resisted opening the south harbour to the public until the pressure from GUBOH became too much for them

They resisted any measure to put some lipstick on their ugly gorilla to help the businesses whose trade was stricken due to the repulsiveness of the site and the disgraceful state of the last stretch of the Cliff Walk from Bray

They refused to continue discussions with Stephen Donnelly TD and Cllr Tom Fortune last December, when their tame councillors sabotaged efforts to get everyone around a table under the auspices of the old Town Council — discussions which might have led to progress acceptable to the community and a solution in place for this summer, now halfway through

And they refused to spend the negligible sum of €300,000 to implement the Greystones Harbour Community Plan — a drop in the bucket when set against the let-off of €30 million in public money given to them by NAMA and the €17 million worth of land removed from the proposed public park and handed to them for nothing by Wicklow County Council

It is high time that the Municipal Council says STOP to all this! 

It is high time that the Municipal Council says to Sisk: 

You have one opportunity to mend your fences with the Greystones community. 

Sit down with this council, with the community groups having an interest in the harbour, with the sponsors of the Community Plan, and make a deal to implement it.

Let’s be clear — once again — because some of the usual suspects have been stirring up the mud and pretending that the Community Plan would obstruct completion of the project.

The Community Plan is not set in stone. Much of it is negotiable. 

More to the point, it is flexible. Every measure in it can be coordinated with any possible phasing of the remaining build-out. 

The key words are phasing and coordination, and all that is needed for these is for Sisk to give up its dog-in-the-manger attitude, take down the two fingers it has been holding up to us for seven years now, and engage in a constructive manner to get a solution which will satisfy its construction requirements and at the same time satisfy the needs of the community.

One thing is sure. If Sisk do not do this, there will be further delay and this entire project will stretch out to the early 2020s — if it is ever completed at all.

Why?

Because what is contained in Sisk’s new construction schedule, however fanciful its start date, is not entirely covered by existing planning approval.

That means further planning applications to WCC. Inevitably, these will be objected to and appealed to Bord Pleanala with a minimum further delay of two years. 

Given the feelings in the community against Sisk and its behaviour, these objections will be many.

Changes may, and almost certainly will, require a new Environmental Impact Assessment, under rules somewhat different from when the last was carried out, with further possibility for objection and delay.

Does Sisk want that?

Does Greystones Municipal Council want that?

Does WCC want that?

Does GUBOH want that?

The answer, in all cases, must be NO.

GUBOH certainly does not want it — our attitude is that the sooner Sisk start, finish it, and are gone the hell out of Greystones, the better it will be for the community which has suffered their arrival and presence for seven years already.

So, surely the solution is obvious?

The Give Us Back Our Harbour group asked local election candidates to commit themselves to active support for the Community Plan to remediate the harbour building site and return its amenities to the community.

Nine out of fourteen runners did so.

GUBOH is asking the local community to vote ONLY for those nine candidates, and for no others.

This video was made as part of that campaign.

The exterior footage is largely of the abandoned harbour building site, which the Sisk construction company left in mid-2010.

GUBOH volunteers will blitz the Greystones area with our campaign leaflet over the next few days. As well, GUBOH will release its election video asking voters to select candidates ONLY from the list of nine who have committed to action to implement the Community Plan.

The photos show our leaflet, the Greystones Harbour Community Plan proposals, the 3,500 square metres of grass which is all that Sisk has offered — and details from the LEGEND showing what came out of proposals from the Greystones area community consultation last August/September.

Harbour group GUBOH is stepping up its campaign to have new councillors elected only from the list of nine who have pledged action to have the Community Plan for the harbour implemented. GUBOH will release a campaign video and will distribute leaflets throughout the Greystones area as part of its final appeal for a pro-Plan vote. "Last week eight candidates committed themselves to taking strong action at county level to set the Plan in motion and clean up the harbour building site. They were joined this week by another of the 14 runners, Niall Byrne of the Green Party," said GUBOH spokesperson Basil Miller. "This gives voters a real chance to bring about change and to force Wicklow County Council and Sisk to return the harbour amenities to the community while we wait for construction to resume. "By voting for candidates who have pledged themselves to promote the Community Plan, the people of Greystones will radically increase the chances of seeing the site landscaped and opened to the public, lighting and furniture provided, and an end to seven years of disruption and deprivation of amenities." GUBOH is advising voters to choose only from among the nine pledged runners. Said Miller: "These nine have made a very specific pledge. We are asking voters to vote only for them, in the order they prefer, and then to stop. There's no obligation to put a number in every box — there have been many cases of very low preferences electing a candidate in final counts over one who scored much better in high preferences. "So we ask, please, vote the pro-Plan ticket and then STOP, to ensure we have a majority of Greystones councillors heading for Wicklow with a solution to the harbour at the top of their agenda."

The nine candidates who have committed themselves are (alphabetical order):

Niall Byrne (Green Party) Liz Dillon (Fine Gael) Tom Fortune (Independent) Taragh Hanley (Fianna Fail) Jacqui Johnston (People Before Profit Alliance) Charlie Keddy (Independent) Nicola Lawless (Sinn Fein) Ian McGahon (Labour) Jennifer Whitmore (Independent)

Green Party candidate Niall Byrne has added his name to the list of local election candidates who support implementation of the Community Plan.

Byrne released a press statement to this effect today, Sunday 11 May. It states:

After considering a request from the Greystones Give Us Back Our Harbour ( GUBOH ) group, Niall Byrne, the Green Party's local election candidate has agreed to pledge his support to a motion if elected to Wicklow County Council, asking the County Manager to use his powers under the contract with Sispar Ltd. to compel the developers to implement the community plan narrowly rejected by the old Town Council last October. This motion will also direct the County Manager to enforce all conditions of the planning permission.

Niall said: ''I talked with a spokesperson for the group and, after they stated that not all elements of the plan were set in stone and that there was room for negotiation, I felt it was incumbent upon me if elected to help move matters forward in the interests of all the stakeholders involved. I was told that, with goodwill, a phased approach could be arrived at which would answer both the community's needs and Sisk's construction requirements.

"Even if construction of housing units begins in the near future, it is going to take time, possibly years to complete everything. The proposers of the community plan stated that they just want some structure as to what will happen at each phase of the building works."

Niall ended by saying "This request seems reasonable to me."

This means that nine of the fourteen candidates are committed to GUBOH's proposed actions to compel WCC and Sisk to implement the Community Plan.

GUBOH advises voters to vote for no other candidates except these nine.

"Vote in order of your own choice among the nine pro-Plan candidates," said GUBOH spokesperson Basil Miller, "but if you want to see the harbour fully open to the public, with the building site landscaped and the ugly fences gone, please DON'T VOTE for any of the others — not even a 14th preference."