— With planning approval for BusConnects, the project fell short of a prioritisation review in 2024.
— But Blanchardstown to City Centre BusConnects project now in judicial review.
A quick-build project to add safety measures to improve the junction at Hanlon’s Corner in Dublin has been scrapped.
Hanlon’s Corner is the junction of the North Circular Road and Prussia St / the Old Cabra Road. As this website reported, the junction project was discussed at a number of Dublin City Council local areas and committee meetings, including one local area meeting where councillors spent nearly an hour discussing the project in 2022.
At the January meeting of Dublin City Council, Cllr Feljin Jose (Green Party) said: “The North Circular Road project is mentioned [in a written report], but there was another element of it, the Hanlon’s Corner junction project. That was about two years ago and it has not been mentioned since.”
Cllr Jose asked what happened to the project and said he had received a question from a member of the public about it that morning.
He added that the junction is “a nightmare” and that “it badly needs some improvements”.
The question was not answered at the meeting, but he was told he’d get a written response.
In a written response, Dublin City Council’s transport section said: “The Hanlon’s Corner Junction project was initiated to deliver interim upgrade measures to the North Circular Road, Prussia Street and Old Cabra Road junction in advance of the planned Blanchardstown to City Centre Core Bus Corridor BusConnects project. Public Consultation on this interim scheme design was undertaken in 2023.”
“Following review of the public consultation submissions and in line with the new NTA (National Transport Authority) Cycle Design Guidance, the consultants updated the preliminary design and this was submitted to the NTA for approval. However, in June 2024 an Bord Pleanála (ABP) granted planning approval for the Blanchardstown to City Centre Bus Connects project which will include a full upgrade to the junction,” the official response said.
The Blanchardstown to City Centre BusConnects project is now caught up in a judicial review after owners of the unmanned petrol station on the Old Cabra Road claimed 94% of their customers will be wiped out if the project goes ahead.
Regarding the junction project, the council said that in Summer 2024, “the NTA in conjunction with DCC undertook a review of all projects,” which included prioritising projects to “decide which ones should proceed to construction for the period 2025 to 2028 to reflect the anticipated funding envelope.”
The response added: “Following this assessment and given the approval from ABP for the Bus Connects project, it was determined that the Hanlons Corner Interim scheme was not to be included in the priority list of projects as overall, including for the reason that this would not reflect best value for money at this time (all this information was communicated previously in reports to Members and scheduled Party and non-Party meeting days at Active Travel Quarters at Cavendish House).”
The unmanned petrol station only started operating around 2022 several years after the BusConnects routes were proposed.
Even planning permission for the station was only granted in 2019 after the routes had been put out for consultation.
Begs the question why was planning permission granted then. That there was consultation underway does not ever mean that it will actually go ahead, so I would be devils advocate and say that they are entitled to give a view on something that will impact their business.
That they would so assuredly decide to build a station where there was a potential risk to have 95% of custom disappear in the event of the bus connects under consultation going ahead says more about the owners’ risk appetite and expectations of entitlement.