PEOPLE living near the huge National Distribution Park planned for the Clondalkin area of west Dublin fear that their area will be "pulverised" by the large volumes of freight traffic it is likely to generate.
"We know that this will probably go ahead. There are big interests behind it," said Ms Noreen Barry, of Bawnogue. "However if they think they can ride roughshod over a community and impose their environmentally unsound plans on us, they will have to think again."
She said people in the area would have "no idea of what has hit them until it is too late". Residents had only recently become aware of the plan, which would involve more than two million square feet of warehousing with a rail link to Dublin port.
The £100 million distribution centre on a 186 acre site at Clonburris would operate round the clock, generating a major increase in heavy goods traffic on access roads in the area, notably the Fonthill Road, which is being extended to serve the site.
Planning permission for the scheme has been sought from South Dublin County Council by Charnwood Properties Ltd, which is controlled by Mr Harry Dobson, a Canadian multimillionaire, in partnership with Iarnrod Eireann, which will operate the port rail link.
With 5,000 jobs promised in warehousing, offices and light industry, the scheme has won strong political support. It is also being promoted as a way of relieving some of the heavy goods traffic which passes through the city centre, particularly the Liffey quays.
But Ms Barry said that none of the area's public representatives "had the decency" to inform people about the plan. "They think that by waving a banner talking about jobs in their thousands, people will overlook the obvious disadvantages," she added.
The Bawnogue area had "progressed considerably" in recent years, though it was still "plagued with unemployment and the constant threat to our youngsters of drugpushers". But Ms Barry said it would be "quite wrong" of politicians, or anyone, to write it off.
"And now, when maybe we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, the powers that be have decided to `redline' our community and turn us into little more than part of a gigantic freight yard," she said. "Excuse the pun, but is someone trying to railroad us?"
South Dublin County Council is expected to approve the Charnwood Properties planning application, following the developers' response to its detailed request for further information on the project. It is likely, however, that there will be a planning appeal.
