€7bn theme park - Project may take planners for a ride

THE coming days will tell whether the world’s most grandiose theme park, the €7 billion Vega City project planned for Ireland, will get off the ground.

A Disney-style venture covering a 2,500-acre area of north county Dublin, it would embrace as many hotels as Killarney and need 75,000 visitors a day to be viable.

Following the appointment of well-known property developer Owen O’Callaghan as chairman of UEP, the US-funded group driving the proposal, it has taken on added status.

Nevertheless, planners and managers in Fingal County Council remain unconvinced. Hopefully, as councillors prepare to vote on the issue, their views and those of the local community will not be frivolously swept aside.

There are lingering suspicions that if the mammoth undertaking gets the green light, it could subsequently prove not to be viable, effectively clearing the way for alternative proposals including, for example, vast housing developments.

Rightly or wrongly, some people hold the view that this could be a Trojan Horse for land rezoning.

It would be folly of local politicians to ignore the possibility that the venture might be rooted more in the realm of Disney than the real world.