Councillors wait and see on fun park

MOST Fingal county councillors who will decide if the promoters of the 7bn Vega City theme park can apply for planning have an open mind on the project.

A sample survey of the 26 councillors carried out by the Irish Examiner yesterday revealed most of them will not make a decision until next Monday night's special meeting.

Both the planners and promoters of the project will make presentations to the meeting and then the councillors will vote on whether to allow United Entertainment Partners (UEP) to apply for planning permission.

Planning officials The Fingal County Council planners will recommend that the promoters should not be allowed proceed to planning because they say the project would require 37 million visitors to make it viable and that was not possible. But the promoters reject this view, saying that when the airport and road expansion takes place it would attract these numbers.

Fingal Labour councillor Michael O'Donovan said he would keep an open mind on the proposal "but we would have to put safeguards into the permission to ensure that the developers could not change the use to just housing and retail". Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Kennedy agreed that safeguards would have to be inserted to ensure that this agricultural belt was not rezoned for housing and shopping.

"But I will keep an open mind if it is half as good as they say then this will be a massive development with a huge economic spin-off." But Fine Gael councillor Cathal Boland said questions would have to be answered about the viability of the project. "We are constantly being told there is a problem with water supply here, we will have to see how the developers plan to cater for the enormous extra supply of water and electricity that would be required." Independent councillor Jon Rainey said he would favour of the proposal because it could become the flagship tourist project in Ireland.

"The developers plan to build a power plant on site which will deal with the power problems but the water problems will have to be tackled." Meanwhile, Transport Minister Seamus Brennan said yesterday that the State provided public transport on the basis of need and not on any particular commercial venture. But Mr Brennan said the Vega City proposal seemed to be straddling the MI and that would appear to support the venture.