A 20-year campaign by a football club in south Co Dublin to get itself a new clubhouse is set to rumble on after it deferred its latest bid for planning permission having been told by local council officials it would not be successful.
It is two decades since what is now Sallynoggin Pearse first approached Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council intending to replace its old and deteriorating clubhouse, its officials say. At the time, the local authority said its preference was to relocate the club around the corner from Pearse Park to Sallynoggin Park where they would be given access to a new facility which was then in the planning stage.
Planning permission was subsequently obtained in 2007 but the project never went ahead and the then Pearse Rovers stayed where they were.
By 2018 relocating the club became a priority when its existing clubhouse was vandalised. After the council initially said again it would build a new clubhouse in Sallynoggin Park if the club gave up its legal claim to a pitch a local land owner had allowed them to start using almost 50 years earlier, a deal was eventually agreed based on the club funding construction and the council proving the long term lease required to secure grants and loans once the project was in train.
Since then, club chairman Richie Cummins says the club has deferred making of planning applications three times at the council’s suggestion. And it was told at a meeting in November the local authority would not now be honouring its commitment to the long-term lease.
“The pre-planning stuff was all positive,” he says. “We are meeting the criteria for mixed-use facilities, not-for-profit groups sharing the facilities with sports groups. We’re ticking all the boxes. There is no issue with the building, no issue with the location of the building. So, we’re at a loss as to what the big issue is here.”
Sallynoggin Pearse, the product of a 2010 merger between Pearse Rovers, where Paul McGrath played as a teenager (the hope is to name the clubhouse in his honour), and Sallynoggin Celtic, is a relatively small club. It has just two adult men’s teams, although Cummins makes the point it used to be much bigger and could grow again if it had more certainty over its future facilities.
What it has done, however, is form a partnership with Grenada FC, which has 90 teams and 1,500 young players. It hopes to use the new clubhouse along with a boxing club and kick-boxing club. Dublin Fire Brigade sports club are interested, a local gardening group would like to use it, and there is talk of a dancing club too.
“It’s not just football,” says Cummins. “There’d be other groups using it which is important. The crime prevention officer from Dún Laoghaire said our current building (a 40ft shipping container) was vandalised and the previous building was vandalised because of not being used enough. But the council have used it as another excuse not to support us, saying we are looking for a community centre rather than a sports facility. We have never used that term but we do want something that is of benefit to the community.”
He gives a vivid account of dealing with council officialdom, with everything — people, policies, allocated plots of land and pitch allocations — shifting over time. At one point, he and fellow club committee members Shane O’Brien and Paul Bishop say it was suggested they get a solicitor’s letter written to inject urgency into the council’s position — only for the official who had suggested it to stop engaging because they had “gone legal”.
The council’s current offer is a vandal proof prefab which, the club was told, would cost more than €200,000 but contain just two dressingrooms and no showers.
“Are you really expecting teenage girls to share that with either teenage boys or men?,” asks Grenada chairman Ciarán Kane, who says wider frustration with the council over facilities and pitches in particular, has prompted clubs across the area to set aside their rivalries to co-ordinate their campaign for improvements.
The lack of joined-up thinking, he says, is also evident in his own club’s home facility in Blackrock which, he says, they are delighted to have but which they have been told they should not make available to community groups during weekdays when it is underutilised.
Sallynoggin Pearse might settle for that but instead find themselves frustrated by a shift in council policy which, says Cummins, involves a move away from granting long-term leases to clubs. He cites a recent example of that happening to another club.
“We’re not asking them for a penny,” he says. “Just that they honour the commitment they gave us when we gave up our claim to a pitch they wanted. They are creating a situation here where nobody can trust them.”
The club has, he says, widespread support among councillors and local TD Richard Boyd Barrett describes the council’s treatment of the club as “shameful” and “inexplicable”.
“You would think they would be encouraging projects like this but instead they are putting obstacles in their way. It’s hard to understand, but it’s not unique, I’m not exaggerating when I say I am inundated with clubs in the area raising issues over facilities, pitches and particularly all-weather pitches,” said the People Before Profit–Solidarity TD.
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council did not respond to requests for comment.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
