White Water Development:...news 17feb 2006
White Water are Applying for a change in Planning Permission to their
White Water Development here Newbridge town center. A meeting for concerned locals was held in the Keadeen on Thursday 16th Feb

Attendance
200 hundres seats were provided and I guess 270 people turned up.
It was an open meeting no one was officially invited or not invited.
A leaflet drop around Newbridge was done to advertise this event and
it is how I heard about it. Local town councillors and officals were
there. It was mostly local Newbridge people.Having lived in the town all my life I went along for curiousity.

Here is the Lie of the land as I heard it
The White Water developement here in Newbridge was to bring shops , offices , apartments and cinema to the town center.

Now they are looking to pull out providing the cinema in the White Water center as per the original proposal. Councillors backed the planning proposal for White Water on the belief that the cinema was to put into the heart of the development and give local people a good ammenity. Now not two months before the opening an alternative offer is on the table. Instead of the 6 screen cinema,a creche and more retail is proposed . Furthermore an offer of a 8 screen cinema on the site of Bradshaws (across the road at the back of town )and this is to be a 'joint venture'.

Now some interesting things that surfaced at this meeting.

A cinema makes 20 euro per square foot per year
Retail makes 140 euro per square foot per year.
However you can double your retail in the volume used by a cinema.
That means 14 times the money for the same space.

Apparently you can indeed put up a cinema but you dont have to let anyone into and you will still be compliance of the planning .
An application for change of planning permission was put into an Bord Pleanala before in 2003 , this was refused.
This is an amended application to an bord Pleanala.
A reason stated by Gary Cooper(Project Manager) of White Water for this change was that a six screen cinena was 'not viable' .
Did you know that 6 six cinemas are viable in similar towns all around Ireland outside of Dublin.
Did you know that this was made public in the Sunday Independant...So much for not letting the locals know.

Apparently you can apply for planning permission on land you do not own.
Apparently the phrase joint venture are meaningless because if one party pulls out of venture for whatever reason then the venture can be canned.

Did you know that a planning permission for a multiscreen cinema complex has been sought for Naas.

Apparently planning permission for a multiscreen on Bradshaws can be turned down because Newbridge would be in the hinterland of a 10 screen cinema in Naas.

I heard that White Water are ignoring complaints about this made to their office. One woman made 17 phone calls about this and got zero written replies.

If planning was granted for a multiscreen cinema on the Bradshaw site it would take at least two years to happen.

They are looking to open up on the 10th of April
There are rumours that an Taoiseach will be there to open it.

Lines of action were agreed

1) get people to lodge a planning objection with an Bord Pleanala I will get details on exactly how to do this and put them on this site by next week.

2) There is to be a March on Saturday week 25th Feburary to draw publicity to what is afoot here. The chief tenants of White Water will no doubt be interested observers.

Other actions are to individually complain to Debenhams and Marks and Spencer in Ireland.
3000 letters from local school children are to be collected and submitted to Kildare County Council.

Explaination of 1)

Planning Decisions to grant change of Planning Permission for big projects like this are granted or refused by an Bord Pleanala. The objective is to make sure that White Water application for change of planning permission is refused again.
To make this happen large numbers of individual objections to this application for change of planning permission must be posted to An Bord Pleanala with a form and fee. This must happen fast.

stay tuned folks