Ikea store ‘will account for 12% of M50 traffic’
The claim was made yesterday during the first day of an oral hearing by An Bord Pleanála into plans by the Swedish furniture giant to locate a store in north Ballymun.
The National Roads Authority said the country’s busiest motorway, which is currently undergoing a €1 billion upgrade, would require further major roadworks by 2012 in order to cater for the extra traffic generated by the planned store.
Opposing the granting of planning permission for the development the NRA’s head of programme management, Hugh Creegan, said the M50 was already experiencing traffic levels above its operating capacity.
Mr Creegan claimed the NRA was concerned that the benefits of the €1 billion upgrade of the M50 — which is due to be completed in 2010 — would be undermined by a decision to grant planning permission for the Ikea store.
The Government altered its own retail planning guidelines in 2005 to raise the official limit on the size of major retail outlets in order to facilitate the opening of Ikea’s first store in the Republic.
Thousands of Irish shoppers already visit Ikea stores in Glasgow and Manchester on an annual basis.
Last October Fingal County Council granted planning permission, subject to 29 conditions, for the controversial 30,600sq metre store which is due to be located on a site just off the M50 in north Ballymun.
The company’s first store in the north is scheduled to open in Belfast in December 2007.
Architect, Brian McClinton, representing Ikea told the hearing that the company intended building a two-storey retail warehouse on a 100-acre site located within the Ballymun Regeneration zone.
The retail space will consist of a showroom, a 500-seater restaurant, a Swedish food hall and crèche as well as parking for 1,527 vehicles, 623 of which will be located underground.
Mr McClinton said the company hopes to open the Ballymun store in May 2008 if it is granted planning permission for the development.
However, the NRA said the Swedish company had provided the planning authorities with a “completely inadequate assessment” of the traffic implications arising out of the store’s opening.
Mr Creegan said the NRA’s own study said the Ballymun junction on the M50 would not be able to cater for predicted traffic levels by 2012 because of the extra vehicles generated by Ikea customers.
A total of seven parties have formally objected to the granting of planning permission for the Ballymun site, largely because of the store’s negative impact on traffic on the M50.
They include the NRA, Green Party TD, Eamon Ryan, Treasury Holdings, Tesco and the Irish Hardware and Building Materials Association.
A number of other parties were also granted observer status by the ABP inspector, Keith Sargent including Ballymun Regeneration, which strongly supports the development on the basis that it will provide 500 sustainable jobs in an area of relatively high unemployment.
“The debate in relation to Ikea, unfortunately, has tended to focus solely on traffic issues rather than on the bigger picture of sustainable development,” the company’s managing director, Ciarán Murray told the hearing.
Mr Murray claimed Ikea traffic would only account for 5% of all traffic at peak periods on the M50.
